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The England gymnast who suffered a horror fall in the Commonwealth Games says he is thankful to have avoided life-changing injuries, but his initial reaction was to feel he had let his country down.
Gabriel Langton was taken away on a stretcher after landing on his neck when he fell from the high bars in the men’s team competition on Friday. He was released after 24 hours in hospital when scans showed he had escaped with heavy bruising to his neck.
“I remember pretty much all of it,” he said. “Because we were slightly behind in the competition, I remember trying to go for as close to perfection as I could. It went slightly wrong and then I was in quite a lot of pain when I fell down.
“I heard a lot of people in the arena, as they went ‘ooh’. I got told to stay as still as I could on the mat. Then I was in a brace so I couldn’t look around and see people’s reactions”
After the accident, Langton wanted to get up because he felt the fall might have cost England a medal. “Initially I thought I needed to get back on the bar to finish my routine,” he said. “The team were behind. It felt like I could have contributed to the team score. So I was disappointed in myself.
“Then more medical staff came up and I was like, ‘I’m probably not going to get back on the bar now’. I was just frustrated that had happened at that moment. Then when adrenaline wore out a bit, I was in some pain.”
While Langton was lying in the medical room in a neck brace, England’s national coach came up to him and told him the team had won silver. “It was about 10 or 15 minutes later,” he said. “He was slightly worried, but to make it a bit more positive he told me straight away: ‘You have either just won a gold or silver medal with your team, so congratulations’.”
Langton admitted he did fear a serious injury. “On the evening of when it happened, and then the early morning after, I was struggling to ignore that side of it because I didn’t know. I knew I could talk still, I could move a lot of things. Then when I got the scans back, it was a big relief.”
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Asked if he felt lucky, he said: “After it happened, I didn’t feel lucky at all. I was annoyed about what had happened. But looking back at it and having seen the video, I suppose it could have very easily gone a different way.”
Langton is not expecting to compete at the European Championships next month, but is hoping to get back to training soon after being cleared of concussion. “The second scan I had said there’s some swelling in my neck, which I think is to be expected,” he said.
“My back has tightened up a little bit as well, but I don’t think that’s too surprising. It’s nothing too serious and hopefully won’t be too long.
“I’ve done that skill so many times – probably about 10,000 times and this has happened once, “If you look at those stats then you can see this was a freak accident. I’ll be pretty confident I can put that to one side.”
