Kitzbühel, January 2010. Questions to Daniel Albrecht.
How
would you describe your health and condition a year after your
terrible crash here at Kitzbuehel?
Daniel Albrecht: Much better than I ever could expect it. It’s
extremely enjoyable for me to have recovered so well after such a
nasty accident
Do you still have precise
memories from that accident?
No. Everything has been
deleted in my mind. In fact I can’t really remember anymore who I
really was before my accident.
Apparently, you watched you
jump several times while in hospital, what did you feel at that
point?
Nothing. I was not able to
make any emotional connection between those pictures and myself. At
that point I had the impression it was a Playmobil toy flying in the
air.
You sustained several serious
injuries including concussion, a serious compression of your lungs,
bleedings in your brain and you had to be put in artificial coma.
When did you start to recover your consciousness?
After three weeks of
artificial coma. I finally woke-up but at that stage I didn’t know
where I was or why I was there. I could not speak and I was unable
of tasting or smelling any flavour. My parents needed to teach me
something new every day, including the fact that I was their son.
Three weeks later, I could start to reflect and talk yet my first
question was “Who am I?”
You older procedural memory
was still available. This means that you were able after a period of
recovery to sort of download past information as well as some mental
procedures and precise behaviours and habits such the capacity to
ski. The episodic and semantic memory seemed by contrast to be
blocked. What are the consequences for you?
For instance I totally forgot
the names of animals. I was aware that a butterfly was flying in my
room but the name of that insect didn’t come up in my mind. Yet
there are many more difficult consequences which are still going now
– like my inability to feel any emotion. My parents were with me all
the time. It was good for me to have them by my side but I was
incapable of feeling anything such as love. I sometimes behaved like
a kid and. without realising it, I told them some very bad things.
What are your feelings now?
In the meantime things have
improved and I can again feel emotions. Yet I don’t know if they are
stronger or weaker than in the past. That’s the toughest and most
upsetting part about amnesia – one never really knows where he
stands. You cannot make any comparison with the past.
What have you done to improve
your condition and be fit again?
To be honest I must say it
has been pretty hard. Luckily I’m apparently not the kind of person
who gives up on the first obstacle. I guess I was the same in my
days as an athlete. At a certain point during my recovery in
hospital, I managed to find my way to the therapy room and walk up
to the first floor to do some physical exercises. Then I asked for
an exercise bicycle in my room. At the beginning it was really
painful and sad. The entire hospital staff surrounded me sometimes
and had a hard time believing what hey were seeing. To produce 110
watt is easy for any athlete but I was fighting extremely hard just
to reach 30 watt.
You aim at competing again
on the World Cup tour and get your former life back – isn’t it a bit
risky?
No. I see it as my own
personal therapy to find my way back to myself. A few months
ago, I was far from being a skier again. In the beginning I didn’t
really know how good I had been in the past! I was no longer aware
of what kind of activity was being a ski racer. People were talking
to me about my former career. I would listen to them in amazement.
But it doesn’t help to explain something at length to a patient
having suffered from a serious head and brain trauma. You just
forget everything the minute you hear it!
When did the racer awake in
you?
After a while I started to
ask a few questions and investigate my former life. Then it suddenly
clicked in my head. I felt the urge and the desire to try to get
back there as soon as possible. It was amazing. I think that
something was still waiting there in my unconsciousness, a kind of
instinct. Fortunately my body sort of remembered how it worked. The
technique which made me a champion in the old days was still there.
Yet after a few seconds on the snow, I felt dizzy as if I had been
driving too fast. Then things improved on my second run. I felt a
very warm emotion going through me and I knew at that moment that I
was doing everything right. I felt secure!
Your doctors are not so
optimistic about your comeback chances. Are they more reasonable
than you are?
I am not entirely sure myself
whether this comeback is an illusion or not. I’m just trying hard.
What would I have achieved so far without a goal? I don’t want to
give up.
You postponed your comeback
several times so far. Don’t you think you tried too hard?
It surely hurt me to see
that even the strongest will was not enough to take me back at a
good level after a few days of training on snow. There were times
when I asked myself how I could have had such an idea to try again.
It even seemed total nonsense. But a short while later, I had
recovered all my courage. Now I’m confident about being back out
there pretty soon.
What are your biggest
problems?
I am struggling to precisely
gauge my speed and my personal limits. I went through moments when I
was totally mistaken on my real condition. Sometimes I could have
sworn that I had been at my very best in a run yet on the finish
line, I would find out that my performance and my time were
absolutely terrible.
Why don’t you give yourself
more time?
My trainer is also asking me
that same question sometimes. He would be happy to see me starting
in a slower event like giant slalom. It would be far less dangerous
than to start in a downhill he says. But I replied that I didn’t
want to only make smooth turns when I’m skiing - it’s not my
cup of tea.
Will you ever ski down the
‘Streif’ again?
For sure. Either I manage to
fully come back or I won’t come back at all!
