Spanish cyclist dies after 24 years in a coma

Twenty-four years of death. An atrocious story, which closely resembles that of the former defender of Nimes and the French national team Jean Pierre Adamswho was in a coma for 39 years due to an anesthesia error during a minor knee operation. Raul García Alvarez he said goodbye to this life at 41 years old. His existence was interrupted in the descent of the Morcuera, when he was just 17 years old, during a stage of the Vuelta a la Sierra del Norte de Madrid. The fall on August 20, 1998. A few days before Marco Pantani he had won the Tour de France. Alvarez was a promising climber. That day, while approaching a bend on the treacherous pass often included in the Vuelta route, the Segovian cyclist exited a bend badly and fell into a ravine, climbing over a five-metre high embankment. The collision caused him severe trauma to the head and chest, as well as a deep cut on his leg. Alvarez was going down to about 80 km/h and probably – even if the family is convinced of the opposite – without a helmet. Rescued by helicopter, the rider was transported to the Hospital 12 de Octubre in Madrid, where he underwent surgery that lasted four and a half hours.

During the first year after the accident, the cyclist remained in a clinic Burgosbut with a prognosis irreversible. When the family realized that there was nothing more they could do, they decided to take him home. Since then he has been cared for by his parents with the help of his brothers. “We were with him until the last moment, it was hard, but now he rests in peace. Not even the doctors thought he could live that many years. I think if he lived that long, it was thanks to my mother’s care, who watched over him 24 hours a day”, said his brother Antonio. Garcia Alvarez smelled of professionalism and seemed to be on the way to a good career. That curve took it away from him, along with everything else.