Last week, we brought you the troubling news that UFC featherweight Eddie Yagin had suffered a head injury duding training and was rushed to the ER. His manager offered updates and said that Eddie would be okay, but didn’t go into the extent of the injury. According to an interview Yagin did with Loretta Hunt of Sports Illustrated, it was a subdural hematoma:
“The headaches I was feeling were actually the blood touching my brain. I’ve had so many injuries in my life that I wasn’t scared. The only thing I was scared about was surgery, of getting drilled into my skull to drain the blood. That was the part that told me that if I had to do that, it would be the end of my fight career for sure….The doctors said if I hadn’t come to them when I did, it probably would have been a lot worse.”
That’s pretty scary stuff. Luckily for him, he didn’t require surgery as the swelling went down on its own. He was released from hospital a few days later. It will be a long road back to fighting for Yagin though:
“I’m about six months away from anything strenuous, because the last thing I want to do is make it worse. I want to fully recover. It’s happened before, where I’ve come back to the gym from other injuries, been only 80 or 90 percent better and made things worse.”
He’s absolutely right there. Head injuries are obviously extremely serious, and not something you want to rush back from. Good luck to Eddie with his recovery, and I hope to see him fight again one day.