Deep Breath | Daniel Ricciardo

Part Sixty-Seven

Daniel was pretty battered and bruised. They'd ripped his race suit where they had dragged him out the car. He had to go to hospital to have some more checks and to monitor his for smoke inhalation. Christian cleared me to go with him in the ambulance and his family followed on behind.

I couldn't stop crying, I'd never felt so frightened then in that moment. They'd kept Daniel on a back board and neck brace to protect his spine so they could X-ray it.

Daniel was crying due to the pain and guessed the trauma of the whole situation. I was holding his hand and wiping his face with my sleeve. "You're going to be okay baby," I said lifting his oxygen mask and kissing him on the lips. His heart was racing and his whole body was shaking. "Can't you give him something for the pain." I asked the paramedics.

"Not till they've assessed him, it's better for them to see the pain first hand. We hold off for as long as he can tolerate it."

"He doesn't look like he's tolerating it at all" I replied taking Daniels hand in mine, interlacing his fingers.

"We're almost there, just hold on a little longer." Daniel nodded in reply.

When we arrived to the hospital they whisked him away and ushered me to one side but I refused. I ran behind them and followed them into the treatment room. "Are you family?" The nurse asked me.

"Yes, I'm.... I'm family" I answered.

They did some initial neurological checks and cleared his c-spine.

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We waited for a few hours for checks, scans and other testing to be done. Daniel was on some intravenous medications for pain and they kept him on oxygen while he was waiting and he wasn't in a good mood. He said the pain was better and it was just shock.

I'd left his mom and dad to it when the third argument started about how unsafe the sport was and how he needed to think about life without racing. Daniel just reacted badly, I understood where Grace was coming from but it wasn't realistic. Drivers crashed, if it scared them out of the sport they wouldn't be any drivers left.

Daniel was more interested in arguing about coming home or back to hotel. The doctors where advising him to say in for a couple nights but he was just raging. He was adamant that it was just the shock that caused his initial reaction and pain. That he was no longer in pain and everything felt good.

I couldn't understand where all this anger was coming from. He'd been like it all weekend and the crash seemed to have only made it worse. He was snapping at anyone who tried to speak to him. He'd had some smoke inhalation and his leg was burnt slightly from the fire. Other than that he was just bruised and sore the doctors agreed but they wanted to monitor him. The burn wasn't severe enough for medical intervention luckily!

In the end we left at about 12am on the Sunday morning, having been discharged against medical advise. Daniel said he would get checked by the red bull medics and that was that. His mom and dad had given up at about 10pm the night before and gone back to the hotel. I could tell he was relieved when they left, so much so I thought he'd want me to go but he didn't ask. We just sat quietly together holding hands, waiting for the other to talk or do something.

So we left after about 7 hours at the hospital and I texted Christian to update him. I left out the part about the medical advise, it wasn't my place to tell. Daniel and I were just quiet. He didn't hold my hand as we left and didn't try to sit by me in the car ride home.

It felt like something was wrong between us. I felt like we'd both experienced something traumatic today and we should lean on each other. He clearly had other ideas.