Former two-times UFC welterweight champion Matt Hughes was airlifted to a medical facility on Friday after the truck he was driving collided with a moving train around 70 miles northeast of St Louis, an Illinois state police spokesperson told the Guardian.
Hughes, 43, was traveling in a pickup truck eastbound on Beelers Trail in Illinois’s Montgomery County approaching a railroad grade crossing marked with crossbuck signs at around 10:45am when he crossed the tracks directly in front of an oncoming train and was struck on the passenger side, officers said.
Police said Hughes was “seriously injured” and transported to a Springfield hospital by an Arch Air Medical Services helicopter ambulance.
UFC president Dana White told ESPN that he’s been in contact with Hughes’ family, who are traveling to the facility where the Illinois native was taken.
“Apparently he has head trauma,” White told the network. “His family is traveling to him now.”
The Illinois state police’s traffic reconstruction unit was still investigating the crash on Friday afternoon. Officials said no further information was available.
Our thoughts are with Matt Hughes and his family. pic.twitter.com/TF6BaHSa85
— UFC (@ufc) June 16, 2017
Hughes had two as stints the organization’s welterweight champion from 2001 through 2006, during which time he was considered among the best pound-for-pound fighters in mixed martial arts.
He was inducted to the UFC’s Hall of Fame in 2010 and formally retired from competition three years later, though he was reportedly mulling a comeback as recently as this year.
