Juan Manuel Correa has publicly sent his “deepest condolences” to the family of Anthoine Hubert in his first Instagram video since Spa.
The American-Colombian was involved in the horrific crash at the top of Raidillon which claimed the life of the Frenchman and has left the 20-year-old fighting for his own survival in a London hospital.
Following a stint in a coma and major surgeries to repair his injuries, Correa is starting to make progress and spoke from his bed via social media to convey his emotions.
“It’s been a very rough five weeks since the accident,” he began.
“Obviously I never said it publicly but I want to publicly give my deepest condolences to the Hubert family. It’s been a shock to everyone that such an accident happened. You never really know, you never think something like that can happen and especially not to you until it does.
“I’m just grateful to be here even though obviously I still have a long road of recovery and it’s still uncertain if I will ever recover to 100%, but I am very grateful to be alive and very grateful for the people that have been with me this past five weeks.”
Correa then thanked those who have stood by him and showed him support since that day in Belgium, highlighting how much it has meant.
“I’m very grateful for the family that I have, for the support they have given me. Without them, I would not have made it,” he said.
“This has really changed my life, the way I see things, the way I think about life and everything in general. It’s been a life-changing experience.
“The support, the loving messages from people I don’t even know personally, I’ve read almost all of them. I spent pretty much all day reading messages, trying to answer to as many people as possible or at least ‘like’ the comments.
“I just want to tell you I will read them eventually and there are thousands of them. I’ll get it done one day but thank you so much because it means a lot to me.”
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He concluded by offering insight into the next steps of his recovery, including the expectation of returning home to the US.
“It is what it is, I have accepted what happened and I can only be positive now and work as hard as possible for the fastest recovery possible and the best recovery as well,” he commented.
“The plan will be to have another surgery next Monday and that will be the last surgery here in London. And after that, the beginning of November, I should be travelling to Miami to see my siblings and to start my full-on recovery.
“This should last, according to the doctors here, they’re expecting it to last 10 months to a year before I can start to really tell how the right foot really is because at the moment I have a metal frame that doesn’t let me move the foot at all so it’s just healing. That will be there for at least eight to 10 months.
“We will see what happens but I’m positive, there’s nothing else to do. I can either me here and be sorry for myself and be depressed or I can just get on with it and be positive and do the best I can for the recovery.”