Ten days ago, Lotto Soudal rider Kris Boeckmans made a very hard crash in stage 8 of the Vuelta. The diagnosis was severe: facial trauma with several fractures, a concussion, three broken ribs, pneumothorax, laceration of the lung, bleeding of the lung and swollen pulmonary tissue. The rider is still at intensive care at the Murcia hospital. His closest family and a team doctor of Lotto Soudal is permanently there to support him and follow up the medical communication.

“Since yesterday we were able to stop the ECMO treatment. This is a device that can replace the lungs by extracting poorly oxygenized blood from the body and injecting oxygen rich blood," Lotto Soudal doctor Servaas Bingé said. "In that way the lung can heal without the other body tissues restricted from oxygen. The drainage of the lungs was also removed.

"Kris stays on ventilation support through a tracheal cannula though. In the next days they will see when the induced coma can be diminished. Therefore we need table blood gasses of course. We still have to deal with a polytrauma patient, whose injuries will take a long time to heal, but we hope to see that Kris’ condition will improve day by day.”