NAIVASHA, Kenya, Jun 25 – Kenyan drivers led by five-time Safari Rally winner Carl ‘Flash’ Tundo came together to wish for Tejveer Rai’s recovery after sustaining spinal injury in a crash at the punishing Kedong Stage in Day 2 of the WRC Safari on Friday.
Tejveer, racing in a VW R5 Polo, is currently receiving treatment at the Aga Khan University Hospital where he was airlifted from the scene in Naivasha after he nose-dived and rolled at box 26.
According a doctor who spoke to Capital Sport, Rai sustained spinal injury rendering him unable to use his lower limb after being insensate. He also sustained injury below the umbilicus.
He received care on site which involved extrication and spinal stabilization by the able medical team before being airlifted to the hospital and straight into ICU and now awaits decompression surgery at the premier hospital or abroad.
“Yes, there was a red flag in the opening section of Kedong and one of those in the car is my brother and I’m just praying he is okay, everything that we have been able to rally is because of him. I got at the end of the second stage and just trying having my head right for the last stage and not go off, but it is very hard because we were very close,” Onkar, who is the brother of Tejveer said after getting to the service park.
On his part Tundo said, “I am upset about Tej (Tejveer) and Gareth Dawe, I hope they are okay, I will go check out on them they are good friends of mine.”
National champion Baldev Chager said the crash demoralized many Kenyan drivers and are only wishing for the best on Tejveer.
“We had only done one stage, today the conditions were terrible but we managed to come clean that is the good sign, we started the next stage and we got a red flag 7 km into the stage only to find out that our bother and team mate Tejveer Rai had a bad crash, so we stopped, waited there till the medical team got him out of the car and airlifted him to hospital, so we wish them quick recover,” Chager said.
Another driver, who crashed and was airlifted from Kedong is Martin Prokop from the Czech Republic after rolling in Kedong.
