As I lean into the corner at a speed of 150km/h, I realise I am coming in far too hot. The barrier looms large. A feeling of inevitability engulfs me. I know I am going to crash. I lift my bike, aiming to run off the track, and I squeeze the front brake in a desperate attempt to slow down and wash the bike out. Then my body hits the gravel, but at this stage it’s too late. I can’t avoid sliding into the barrier. In a freak accident, my 200kg Ducati Panigale roars in behind me and crashes into my back. In a split second, everything changes. I know I’m not dead, but I am well and truly fucked.

The fifth stage of the Battle of the Twins superbike series took place at Killarney International Raceway in Cape Town between 22 and 24 March 2018. On my first practice lap, I already had a sinking feeling – if not quite a premonition. I’d never ridden on this track before, never mind competed on it. It’s renowned for its hairpin bends and super-high-speed straights. As the only competitor from Johannesburg, I was at a disadvantage competing against all these Capetonian racers who were used to the layout of their home track. But that wasn’t going to discourage – let alone deter – me. In fact, it made me even more determined to compete. I’d always been an adrenaline junkie, a lover of taking risks, so I was up for the challenge.

I’d started racing superbikes seriously only three years earlier at the ripe “old” age of 38. I loved the feeling of power and freedom that these machines gave me. Years earlier, I’d bought my first superbike at the age of 21 – a Kawasaki ZX-6R that I’d only ever ridden on the road. But as soon as I got married to my wife, Nicole, at the tender age of 23, I traded my bike for a pram. Once our son, Dino, arrived just a month after we’d tied the knot, there was no money for bikes and messing around.

My life had changed a lot since then, and my insurance and property businesses were flourishing. I was the CEO of Alpha Insure, formerly IUM, the largest independently owned underwriting management agency in Southern Africa. For kicks, I’d become serious about bikes again. Over the previous two years, I’d been racing competitively and was doing quite well. I’d won a few races and come second in the championship the year before.

Dino, who was sixteen years old back in 2018, had inherited my need for speed – and just like me, he’d also developed a passion for bikes. The weekend in Cape Town was going to be special bonding time for the two of us, as we were competing in separate races at the notorious Killarney racetrack.

In the back of my mind, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being slightly worried. I’d only had a couple of practice sessions and was struggling to learn the track in time for the race.

Race day arrived on Saturday 24 March, and we were allocated one last warm-up session before the main race began. I wasn’t feeling confident that I had mastered the track with my brake markers and turning-in points, and I asked my friend Morne to come out with me. He knew the course like the back of his hand and had raced in the elite GP series. I wanted to ride behind him and follow his lines as he took the corners. (In racing, it’s called a tow.) So, off we went.

After about five corners on the first warm-up lap, Morne was already about fifteen to twenty bike lengths ahead of me. I decided to go all out to try to catch up to him before I got to the double right-hand turn onto the high-speed main straight. I made up some of the distance, but I soon realised I had left my braking far too late. As much as I tried, I couldn’t brake hard enough.

As I leaned into the corner at a hell of a speed, I knew I was going to crash. I came off my bike and hit the barrier, and then I felt the weight of my beloved Ducati crashing into me. Seconds later, a burning pain pierced my chest. At first, I thought I’d broken a couple of ribs when I hit the barrier, but almost immediately the pain moved from my chest into my back. It was like something sliced right through me. In retrospect, what probably saved me from being completely paralysed for life was that I didn’t lose consciousness when I crashed. As the marshals rushed towards me to move me off the track so that the main race could start, I remember saying, “Don’t move me. Call the ambulance and bring a back brace.”

I don’t remember how long the medics took to get there, but it felt like forever. When they finally arrived, they cut off my race suit, carefully rolled me onto the stretcher and lifted me into the ambulance.

Even though I was in severe pain and had almost literally killed myself, all I could think about was my son, Dino. His race was about to start. Leaving the track to go to the hospital before watching his race was not an option. So, I asked the paramedics to wait. They probably thought I was crazy as I lay in the back of the ambulance, watching the live timing app on my phone as Dino’s race started. Only after he won his race did I give the guys the go-ahead to take me to the nearby Mediclinic Milnerton Hospital. I didn’t think that there was anything seriously wrong with me, so I called my wife, Nicole, to tell her that I had crashed and to reassure her that I was okay. I really thought I was.

The Milnerton Hospital is only a few kilometres from the Killarney racetrack. My plan was to have a doctor check me out and be discharged in time to meet my son for dinner.

Once I got to the emergency room, I was sent for X-rays. Pretty routine stuff. When the results came through, the doctor on duty looked relaxed as he approached me. He told me that it looked like I’d fractured my back a bit, that they might give me a back brace to wear for a couple of weeks, and that I could leave the hospital within the next few hours. I called Nicole again to tell her the good news.

A few minutes later, the same doctor returned. To be on the safe side, they were sending me for a CT scan to make sure they hadn’t missed anything. It sounded logical and part of normal procedure, so we went off to do the scan.

When the results came back, I picked up a slight change in the doctor’s demeanour. His tone was a little more cautious when he said he was admitting me overnight for observation, as the scan showed that I had also fractured a few ribs. He reassured me, however, that the back brace was still the best option for my fractured spine.

Once again I called Nicole, telling her that I wasn’t leaving right away. I also knew that she hadn’t been wildly excited – to put it euphemistically – about the idea of me racing at Killarney, and I wasn’t in the mood for her saying, “I told you so.” I reassured her that everything was fine and that there was no reason to stress. I genuinely thought I’d be out of there by Sunday or Monday at the latest.

A couple of hours later, a guy walked in, kitted out in khaki shorts, shirt, socks and velskoene. I had no clue who he was. He looked like a farmer. I thought he was perhaps visiting a patient and had gone to the wrong section of the hospital. But then he walked right up to me.

“Hello, Mr Iozzo. My name is Dr Attie Botha, and I’m going to be your surgeon. You are in a very serious condition. You’ve severely fractured your T7 vertebra. We’re actually not sure why you’re not paralysed. You’ve also broken fourteen ribs and punctured both lungs. We’ve booked you in for emergency surgery tomorrow morning, and at this stage, I must tell you, I’m not sure how it is going to turn out.”

It took a few minutes for the news to sink in. As I digested it, it felt like a ton of bricks had landed on my head. It was a lot. From a prognosis of a couple of broken ribs and a back brace to this...
Now I had to phone Nicole again to tell her that the whole thing was a big balls-up. I could hear the stress in her voice as she received the news. I then called my PA, Lorna, who quickly organised flights so that Nicole could get to Cape Town. At this point, I wasn’t in any real pain.

Despite Dr Attie’s diagnosis, I felt relaxed, almost as if I was floating outside the situation, because they’d given me pethidine and morphine from the moment I had arrived at the hospital.

At the break of dawn on Sunday 25 March, I was prepped for surgery and rolled into the operating theatre. I hadn’t even asked the surgeon what he was planning to do. I simply handed myself over to the experts. As a patient, you’re often quite ignorant in these situations; you just trust that the doctors know what they are doing.

What I didn’t realise back then was that the operation I should have had – the one that could fix or rather replace my T7 vertebra – could not be done in South Africa. No local doctor was equipped or prepared to do it because the T7 vertebra is located right behind your heart. It’s considered an extremely dangerous form of surgery. I would soon discover that instead of replacing the broken T7 vertebra, the surgeon elected to put plates along my spine to straighten it and give it as much support as possible. Given the circumstances and the lack of technology and experience here, it was all he could really do.

Six hours later, I woke up from the operation feeling groggy from the anaesthetic they’d given me. I had just opened my eyes when I was told I needed to walk. It’s something they insist spinal patients do to ascertain whether the spinal cord has suffered any damage. Being hardly compos mentis from all the medication that had been pumped into me, I passed out almost immediately when I tried to stand up. Fortunately, the nurse was standing behind me and stopped me from falling over.

The next few hours passed in a haze.

Then I was once again wheeled into the theatre to be operated on, as my lungs were filling up with fluid. They could do nothing about the fractured ribs – they would just have to heal on their own.

For the next fortnight, I remained in the ICU at the Milnerton Hospital, where I received really good care. I can’t remember being in any real pain, as I was pumped full of painkillers. Nicole stayed in a hotel close by and came to see me every day.

Right from the start I had to walk: first a few metres, then ten metres and so on. There was an upbeat and positive feeling all round because, according to Dr Attie, the operation had been a great success. The doctors couldn’t believe that I hadn’t damaged my spinal cord. Everyone was amazed that I was experiencing no numbness or tingling in my legs or back.

Straight after surgery I had been put on a morphine drip with a pump. In addition, I was given 10mg of O**Norm every four hours, as well as a 100mg pethidine injection twice a day. With all this pain medication inside me, I wasn’t in any real discomfort. I kept thinking, “This is not so bad.” But all my pain was being masked by the o*i**d s.

Finally, after a two-week stay in hospital, the day arrived for me to leave.

Before checking out, I was given a huge pile of meds that included ten boxes of O**Norm and a repeat script. I was told how much to take and when to take it. So, off I went, armed with my painkillers.

Nicole and I flew back to Joburg. In all honesty, the flight wasn’t great. I had to sit upright in a seat that had very little movement. It was damned uncomfortable, but thankfully the trip was only two hours and I managed to sit through it.

Once we were back home, I bought an electric hospital bed for the bedroom because it was difficult to get in and out of our normal bed.

Lying around and feeling so useless was driving me crazy, so I was back at the office three days later. I had been out of action for over a fortnight and, as the CEO of Alpha Insure, formerly IUM, I was all too aware of the mountain of work I needed to attend to. I got my PA, Lorna, to buy me an electric La-Z-Boy for my office and, for the next few weeks, I was able to lie down while attending to the work that had piled up since my accident. I took my O** pills as prescribed. Soon, I was back at the gym. Life appeared to be getting back on track.