BROOKFIELD, N.S. – Mitch Cooke is on the road to recovery.
Cooke, a Brookfield resident and Truro businessman, suffered major injuries in a motocross crash on Jan. 6 in Florida which left him with 12 broken ribs, a collapsed lung, broken humerus bone and a separated shoulder.
The accident occurred during an open track day when Cooke got tangled up with a fellow rider.
“I went to jump by him on the left and on the landing, someone was either in his way or something happened; he veered left into my line and I just basically landed on the back side of the bike and went down at a very high speed,” Cooke said on Thursday.
“It wasn’t a big jump at all,” he added. “The ground there we were riding is like limestone, so it was pretty hard, so it was basically like body-checking the concrete.
“I didn’t hit my head, which was nice; I was lucky.”
Cooke spent six days in hospital, including four in the intensive care unit. He has already started physiotherapy and said he is feeling better each day.
“I’m just trying to get my ribs to heal so my lungs will come back,” he said.
Cooke, 35, has sustained many injuries while riding motocross. He says it’s part of the sport and the latest incident won’t deter him from getting back on the bike.
“I may take my time a little more when I’m going around people, but it hasn’t scared me from riding, no, not at all.”
Cooke, who owns HAF Skate and Tattoo in Truro, raced on the Canadian motocross circuit for more than a decade until 2009. He still races locally during the spring and summer and travels down south to ride during the winter.
