Top UFC featherweight contender Alexander Volkanovski scored a unanimous decision victory over José Aldo earlier this month at UFC 237 in Rio de Janeiro, but he’s spent the past few weeks recovering from a dangerous blood infection. Volkanovski was hospitalized in Santiago, Chile, after falling severely ill while on his way back home, where he was treated for a bacterial infection that he says could have cost him his leg.
Volkanovski told ESPN that had he arrived to the hospital a few hours later, his UFC career may have been over.
Via ESPN:
“I had 40+ degree temperatures, it was nasty stuff. I was delirious by then and didn’t really know what was going on, but I was like ‘get me a doctor, I need a doctor’. So they did that and, yeah, it was pretty serious, the antibiotics didn’t work straight away; we were really worried about it hitting my tendons and bones because it was very close, once it does that you can have problems.
“So we were pretty lucky the plane stopped in Chile rather than if I’d got on the next flight. Within a couple of hours I would have had to tell them we’ve got to turn this flight around, and by then the damage would have been done and I could have lost the leg, lose your life. That stuff’s very, very serious, but it didn’t get to that stage. We got it just at the right time; we left it too long where it rocked me so much, but we got in just in time for it not to do serious damage.”
