We take a look at the horrific train accident that injured welterweight legend and UFC pioneer Matt Hughes
When you think of Matt Hughes, an image of him running across the cage to slam Frank Trigg or Carlos Newton is sure to pop up. The soft-spoken UFC legend has delivered some of the most iconic moments inside the octagon, and paved ways for wrestlers in the cage.
But in 2017, Hughes was involved in a horrific accident 2017. The former two-time welterweight champion suffered life-threatening injuries after his pick-up truck collided with a moving train in Raymond, Illinois. The tragic event transpired on the Beeler’s Trail when Matt Hughes was on his way back from Montgomery County. Hughes failed to judge an approaching train due to the absence of railroad crossing signs. The train crashed into Hughes’ pick-up truck on the passenger side, resulting in fatal injuries.
The two-time UFC Hall of Fame inductee narrated the shocking story of the incident in an interview with Planet Hank Media Productions:
“I will try and explain… I was helping a farmer and I was taking diesel to a tractor and filling the tractor in the back of his truck. I had diesel and DEF (Diesel Exhaust Fluid), which is a diesel mixture. I was in the country going across a railroad track. At the time, the corn was up, so I couldn’t see the railroad track well. And there was no cross sign or lights, it’s just a yellow sign. So, it was a bad angle… you can’t see the track at all. Terrible angle… I was just going to fill his tractor and got hit,” Matt Hughes said.
How did Matt Hughes recover from the accident?
Following the tragedy, Matt Hughes was rushed to a hospital where the doctors put him in a nineteen-day-long medically-induced coma. Although the retired fighter made rapid progress, his physical abilities have been severely hampered. It’s been five years since the accident, and Hughes has made it a mission to not let life hold him back because of the incident.
Even though he couldn’t recover entirely, he still trains young athletes and follows them to their fights. Hughes even had suicidal tendencies following the incident, but his beautiful and supportive family kept him going.
“I was in a coma for nineteen days… I’ll admit that I have thought about suicide but if I committed suicide, I have so many people watching me that might think it’s cool to do the same thing. So I can’t do that,” added Matt Hughes.
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