WWE Superstar Erik of the Viking Raiders opened up about a frightening motorcycle accident.
Erik and Ivar first joined forces in Ring of Honor in 2014. But their rise was halted when Erik suffered a serious motorcycle accident. Reflecting on the incident, Erik shared that he told that he was lucky to be alive.
During an appearance on Insights with Chris Van Vliet. Erik described the full extent of his motorcycle accident. As he and Ivar began gaining momentum in Ring of Honor as War Machine. Erik’s routine day took a tragic turn after leaving the gym.
He recalled that while riding his motorcycle a girl who was texting at a stop sign caused led to to his severe crash. Erik didn’t even have time to think about braking or swerving to avoid the car. The impact twisted the handlebars, leading to a broken left thumb and several near-fatal injuries.
“I shattered everything above my left arm to my elbow to my shoulder. Then I went up over my handlebars. I punched out her rear window with my face, lacerated above my eye, broke my nose, but I didn’t break the cartilage. I broke the bone, the skull, hit my knee, and then I stood up, and my arm was like wiggling. The girl comes out of the car, and she’s crying. She’s like, do you need me to call the ambulance? And I was like, Yes, please. Then the ambulance shows up and they pull up across the street or across the intersection.”
Erik says doctors told him he could have died in motorcycle accident
“Yeah, I was. I had sat down at that point, and I just stood up off the off the curb, and I started walking to the ambulance. I remember that I saw the ambulance and the paramedic grabbed a body bag out of the back, because they just assumed from the call that I was dead. I walked over and there’s literally a body bag on the ground. I’m like full Walking Dead, right? Because my whole face is like gnarled up with blood and stuff and the paramedic looks at me, and he’s like, ‘Sir, you’re not supposed to be walking. I’m sure I was in shock at this point, and I was like, ‘Do you want me to go sit back down?’
“He said, ‘No, no, no, you’re already over here. I just want to stabilize your neck before you do anything else.’ I was like, okay. He’s like, ‘Unless you want to walk to the hospital.’ I was like, ‘How far is the hospital?’ He’s like, ‘Oh, it’s about three miles.’ And I was like, No, I’ll take the ride. I’m sure he was teasing me at that point, but I was in so much shock that I didn’t know what was going on. Then everybody I talked to after that, the emergency room docs, the surgeon, all the doctors were basically like people don’t typically live, because I wasn’t wearing a helmet.”
He mentioned that doctors told him he should have died, as his arm was severely shattered. Yet, just six months later, after a long surgery, Erik was back wrestling.
Erik reflects on life after his fatal motorcycle accident
“In a way, I was like, I’ve wasted so much time. There’s so many stupid decisions, or I’ve worried about so many things that don’t truly matter. I’ve let so much time waste, and I felt that I couldn’t do that anymore. I felt like I had been given this second chance on life, literally, where it was like, I don’t want to waste any more time. I don’t want to take anything for granted. I definitely hug people more and was a lot more thankful and grateful. Because to have a doctor tell you should have died, not, hey you’re real lucky, or this could have been bad. He was like, Yeah, dude, I can’t explain why you’re alive.”
