On Saturday, November 21, 2020 the athlete’s life Roberto Tello changed forever.
The South American champion of 3,000 meters with obstacles was heading home when, near Purísima, his motorcycle hit a retaining wall of the Costanera Norte.
The 28-year-old runner thought he was dying. He tried to get up, but he had no strength. An excruciating pain in his left arm is what he remembers most of the moment, as is the red pool that surrounded him.
The people who came to help him, including a nurse, took a step back when they saw the state in which Tello was left, who was transferred without vital signs to the German Clinic.
In the medical compound he had to be resuscitated with electroshock, while his family arrived at the scene to find out that the athlete should have an emergency arm amputated.
When he woke up, intubated and unable to speak, he learned of his tragic diagnosis: In addition to the amputation of his limb, he resulted in a punctured lung, fractured ribs, two broken vertebrae and the stripping of his left leg.
“I was intubated for more than 10 days, with a cervical neck and tied hands and feet. When they woke me up, I would stare still all the time. They were stiff days, it really made me sad, ”Tello recalled in dialogue with El Mercurio.
“I still feel my arm”
Roberto was discharged on December 31, the same day he was able to be with his son who was born while he was hospitalized.
He assures that he is still in a lot of pain and still does not accept that he lost an arm, so you know that the reintegration process will be quite tedious.
“I’m in a lot of pain, on tramadol and methadone. I feel the arm and I can move my hand. They call it ‘phantom limb’, because the brain still does not understand that I have an arm, so it sends the signal and, since there is no response, it returns it and there it hurts, ”the athlete explained.
“I have been with a lot of pain therapy, stretching, kinesiologist, reiki and psychologist. Reiki is what has helped me the most, it clears the shock of the accident ”, added Tello.
Asked about his return to sport, Roberto tries to calm down and take things early since it even crossed his mind to try to qualify for the Tokyo 2021 Paralympics.
“Sometimes I wake up with my legs full, but if I run the wounds they can get wet. I also have to see how I’m going to stroke. Sometimes I rush, I think ‘I could be in Tokyo’, but then I calm down ”, said the athlete.
“They told me that in six months all the pain will go down. I hope to jog again in a month, I will be out of calibration because it will be very different. I may have to look for a counterweight with a plastic (prosthesis) ”, added Tello.
To close, Roberto assured that “I dreamed of an Olympic medal as a conventional and now I’m thinking of it as a Paralympic. When I began to tell what had happened, I felt lucky to be alive and enjoying the simple things. I live now. Now I build with what I have, with my family and my son ”.
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