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West Ham star Michail Antonio has been speaking about his road to recovery after his serious car crash back in December.
West Ham star Michail Antonio has lifted the lid on his car accident and the long road to recovery he has ahead of him. The striker has been out for months after he was involved in a car accident in December, suffering a shattered femur.
The forward was left fearing for his life, and scary images of his mangled Ferrari showed why, with state of the car showing what a miracle it was that he made it out of the vehicle and with most of his body still intact.
The damage Antonio did suffer was to the biggest bone in his body - the femur - although he is already doing some light work as part of his recovery, spending weeks in Dubai recently in a bid to speed up the long process.
West Ham boss Graham Potter recently said it was ‘too early’ to say whether Antonio could return before the end of the season, but as far as the player is concerned, the recovery process will last much longer than that.
"I shattered my femur bone in four different places," he told BBC Sport. "I had one single keyhole surgery. They put a pole in my thigh with four bolts, so screws and bolts to knit it back together. My first surgeon said he didn't want me to put any weight on my leg for three months, which is around about now, and you can see that I am walking.
"We got a second specialist who said I needed to start putting weight on it, increasing from 10% up to 100% within three weeks. But I kept my crutches for a further two weeks. Overall, they say it will be between six to 12 months before my leg starts healing properly."
Given the extent of the injury and the fact Antonio is 34 years of age, there are genuine fears that his career may be over, particularly after former Leeds United defender Stuart Dallas was much younger when he suffered a serious femur injury, and after two years trying to recover, he called it a day on his career.
But no two injuries are the same, not least because each body is different, as is each body’s response to any given injury, and Antonio is not giving up hope any time soon. "That's what I am focused on and why I am working six days a week,” he added. “I've always been positive from this situation. It's a horrendous accident, and it's a massive injury.
"It's the biggest injury I've ever had in my career. But the fact that I'm already two to three months ahead of where I should be, I know that I'll play again, and I know that once I'm playing the game I'll get the sharpness back. I was one of the quickest at West Ham. So my body wasn't the body of a 34-year-old before I had the accident anyway. I can still be sharp and still do the business. People have always doubted me. My mental strength is something that I've always believed in and this is just another setback, and it is not going to stop me."
Antonio also wanted to put to bed social media rumours that he was intoxicated at the time of the crash. He confirmed: “I was travelling back from training and, anyway, I've never taken drugs in my life. I've said I like a drink. But in this situation, there were no drugs, there was no drink. That's been ruled out and confirmed by the police."
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