Asian Games 2023: athletics official hospitalised with leg fracture after being hit by misthrown hammer in men’s final
- Kuwait’s Ali Zankawi, whose misthrown hammer hit the leg of athletics official Huang Qinhua, rushes over to try to stop the man’s bleeding
- According to a Games spokesman, Huang ‘was diagnosed with a right open tibiofibular fracture. Currently his vital signs are stable’
An athletics official suffered a broken leg and serious bleeding after being hit by a misthrown hammer in the Asian Games in Hangzhou, but his vital signs are now stable, a spokesman for the Games said on Sunday.
Just before 8pm on Saturday, Kuwait’s Ali Zankawi lined up for one of his throws in the men’s hammer final at the eastern Chinese city’s packed Olympic Stadium. But instead of soaring straight onto the outfield, the hammer flew out sideways and low to the right, smashing into the leg of the sitting technical official.
Looking horrified, Zankawi sprinted over as blood began spurting from the official’s right leg. The official, Huang Qinhua, 62, grimaced and swayed dizzily as Zankawi rushed to check on him, blood shooting out of the wound.
Within seconds Zankawi was using his huge hands and strength to improvise a tourniquet on Huang’s thigh and halt the bleeding. Medical personnel soon took Huang away on a stretcher after applying a tourniquet, then sent him to a nearby hospital.
“He arrived at the hospital at [8.15pm] where was diagnosed with a right open tibiofibular fracture,” Games spokesman Xu Deqing told a news conference on Sunday. “Currently his vital signs are stable.”
