Australian BMX star Kai Sakakibara has begun communicating with his family
Kai Sakakibara has started to communicate with his family and friends months after a race crash that left him with a traumatic brain injury.
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Kai Sakakibara has relocated from hospital to a rehabilitation centre, but the Australian BMX talent’s family have been warned to expect permanent disability after he suffered a traumatic brain injury when crashing in February.
The 23-year-old needed surgery to relieve pressure on his brain after a crash in a World Cup round in Bathurst, NSW, that left him unconscious and in intensive care.
Sakakibara spent nearly eight weeks in a Canberra hospital but, with all surgery now completed, he has moved to the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit in western Sydney, where he is expected to remain for “many months”.
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An update from the Sakakibara family on Friday explained that in the last 10 days he’s progressed from pointing to ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on a piece of paper to speaking when asked simple questions.
But doctors have told the family he will have some permanent disability, with the trauma on the left side of his brain currently impacting his ability to speak and move the right side of his body.
“Kai continues to ‘emerge’ from the state of unconsciousness, and we are super excited to start communicating with him,” the statement said.
“However, as time progresses it becomes more and more evident that this has been a truly serious injury.”
They said Sakakibara has already made “solid improvements” in physiotherapy, occupational and speech therapy, while the facility had gone to great lengths to protect patients from the coronavirus.
“Kai has his phone and scrolls through social media every day, he ‘likes’ posts and tries to send text messages to friends but they are invariably scrambled,” the family said.
“So, if you get a text from Kai don’t worry his account has not been hacked, he’s just trying to get in touch with people.
“The words are jumbled up and unclear - they just don’t come out how he wants which is frustrating for him.
“Sometimes he gets annoyed and sometimes he just puts on that patient Kai smile and we move on.”
Sakakibara and his younger sister Saya were aiming to make their Olympic debuts in Japan, where he spent part of his childhood after being born on the Gold Coast.
He began racing as a four-year-old, moving to Tokyo in 2000 and collecting multiple titles before returning to Australia in 2008.
Originally published as Australian BMX star Kai Sakakibara has begun communicating with his family