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Ryan Curtis has competed in some big fights during his 10 fight professional MMA career, but the MMA star is now in an even bigger fight.
Fellow Bellator vet Leah McCourt recently revealed that Curtis suffered a serious injury to his spine and neck while in training.
“Two weeks ago in wrestling practice, Ryan suffered a traumatic incident,” McCourt said on The MMA Hour. “From what Ryan’s told me, I believe he was in a body lock position and he had his arm trapped, and his partner hipped in and kind of dumped him on his head. So the arm was trapped, so he couldn’t post, and it was quite a force that it has. It basically smashed his vertebrae completely. … The surgeon said the trauma that happened to his spine and his spinal cord and his vertebrae is something you would see from a severe car crash or falling from the likes of a balcony.”
Curtis has already gone through two surgeries related to the injuries, with the extent of those injuries being “two dislocated vertebrae in his spine, C4 and C5, and C5 and C6. Ruptured discs between the vertebrae that then pressed down on Curtis’ spinal cord, which was also dislocated.” McCourt also says the surgeon who worked on Curtis stated the injuries were “the most severe and the most dangerous”
McCourt also revealed that Curtis’ two year old daughter is currently living at her house as Curtis is recovering from all of the injuries.
“He has a two-year-old daughter, she’s living at my house at the minute with my mom,” McCourt said. “My Isabel is looking after her and my mom is looking after [Curtis’ partner] Emma while I’ve had to come back into camp and it’s just — how insane that your life can change in a split second and the magnitude of what Ryan’s life was going to be. It’s definitely hard for us all to understand, and we can’t thank the spinal team and the stages in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast for what they did, because so much could have went wrong during that surgery.
“Ryan is still Ryan, it’s still him, it’s his personality, and [if the injury was] any higher up or any mistakes they could have made, then we could have lost him and his personality, who he was. I think the amount of support from the Irish MMA community and from so many different people, so many different seminars, so many donations to Ryan is a testament to who he is and how many people’s lives he’s touched.”
You can view Curtis’ Go Fund Me page by clicking here.
