FF returnee Brian Copperthite had a massive accident on Friday afternoon at Lime Rock in his latest ride, a DB-3 Kent.
He seems to have dropped the 2 left side wheel/tires into the dirt on tracking out of the downhill at the mend of his first lap of a qualifying session.
Unfortunately he repeated what has happened so many times over the years and jerked the car back on the asphalt and it snapped around and rather than impacting the tire wall outside false grid he was a bit further on and after a spin, maybe 2, hit rhe substantial tire barrier protecting the outer pit wall sideways from the left side.
The car then bounced/spun into the inner pit wall while/after flipping.
Brian is in St Francis, I think, in Poughkeepsie, NY. he is under a medically induced coma with a severe brain injury, called transfused I think. Means his brain bounced around in his skull and made numerous impactes with the skull.
He as unconscious and unresponsive when the first responders reached him, in guite literally seconds, one of the first being a trauma trained doctor who was on false grid for his session which was next up, unfortunately I do not remember that driver/doctors name.
Brian was transported by track ambulance to Sharon Hospital but Life Star was called. Unfortunately due to the numerous storms swirling around they could not fly so he was transferred to Poushkeepie which apparently has a top notch neuro-surgery compoment.
I spoke to his Mom and Dad today, there are small glimmers of hope happening, not the least of which is his left eye, which the term for what happened to it was "blown", that is distended and non-responsive, has returned to normal.;
Also the pressure inside his skull has lessened and there is no bleeding internally.
Brian was starting to try to move a leg and or foot/feet so the docs increased the sedative to make sure he stays very still.
The family has a long road ahead of them and certainly appreciate the racing familys concern and support.
Brain ran a few F1600 events with us in 2011 but it took every resource the family could muster and he decided that was unfair to his parents and siblings so sold his incredibly sanitary Citation, but obviously the bug that bit him was still active and he returned just last week on Tuesday with the Swift. Alan Walker and I helped him the old Kent float level issues and he was running ok by the end of the day.
A bad accident that hopefully Brian can recover from soon.