Terpstra saw Slik hit a truck: "Even in the hospital they said: we have never seen this before"

A dark day last week for the Dutch gravel top. A group including Jasper Ockeloen, Thijs Zonneveld, Niki Terpstra and Ivar Slik were on a training ride in the United States, where they were preparing for the big race Unbound 2024. There, the group experienced the fright of their lives when the last in line crashed hard into a truck. Zonneveld was the first to report about the accident on Instagram, and Terpstra gave an update after one week.

"A round of bad news from America. Yesterday our friend Ivar collided with a car during a joint training ride near Bentonville. He was transported to the hospital while unconscious, where it was determined that he had sustained various injuries. A severe concussion, a broken nose, a small crack in his skull and a lot of bruises, scrapes and cuts," the cycling journalist of Het Algemeen Dagblad explained after the accident.

Zonneveld does report that Slik's condition is stable. Understandably, he will not participate in the Unbound race, which was on his schedule for June 1st. "In the meantime, he is doing well under the circumstances, and the doctors are positive. He is conscious, he is talking, he is moving his entire body. But he will definitely be kept in the hospital in the coming days so they can monitor him. We are very happy with all the (professional) help he has received and is getting. He is not reachable and he will not be on a bike for the time being," the 43-year-old rider of BEAT Cycling concludes his message on social media.

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Terpstra gives update on Slik: "It's bizarre how well he is doing now"

Niki Terpstra is also in the United States and a few days after the accident, he reported that Slik is doing miraculously well and just how bad the situation initially seemed. "We were terrified. Especially the first days were really worrisome. But the way he is recovering is bizarre. We were told yesterday that they think he will make a one hundred percent recovery," he shared in his podcast Speed on Wheels.

Terpstra also gave more details about the circumstances of the accident. "We were doing a tour of about five hours and after two hours, things went wrong. Ivar and Jasper (Ockeloen, ed.) were leading. Thijs (Zonneveld, ed.) and I were behind them. After an unexpected turn, a truck came out of nowhere from the left. Ivar hit the car head-on. His handlebar hit the grill and headlight, his shoulder hit the hood, and his face hit the windshield. He was unconscious. Luckily, he was still breathing, but his face was badly hit and bloody.

Then it was a hellish job to quickly get Slik in sight of the emergency services: there was no signal in the area and the truck was used to get him to accessible terrain. "At that time, we didn't know what was wrong. Fortunately, it was relatively minor. The most important thing was that the brain was okay. His face is battered and his skull has a crack. His nose is broken. At first, we were concerned when things got a bit worse, but then he improved day by day. Even in the hospital, they said: 'we have never seen this before'," Terpstra said about the difficult aftermath of the accident.