Friday, Oct. 15, 2010 | 8:35 a.m.
Local BMX pro TJ Lavin is in a medically induced coma this morning after crashing Thursday evening during a BMX dirt qualifying run at the Dew Tour Championships at the Hard Rock Hotel. Doctors induced the coma after Lavin was brought to the trauma intensive care unit at University Medical Center with a small brain bleed and broken wrist.
"He is doing ok," said Lavin's manager, Chas Aday, via text message Friday morning. "They just repeated the CT scan — no better, no worse." Aday added that Lavin would undergo an MRI on Friday.
A Las Vegas native, Lavin recently told the R-J that having the Dew Tour Championships in Las Vegas was a "real big deal," adding that he wished the six-year-old event had been around when he was in his prime. Lavin — an X Games champion in the late '90s — was out of the running for this year's top spot, but said the competition was "more of a fun thing for me."
His crash occurred on the Tour's first day while Lavin was attempting a trick called a nac-nac in which the rider swings one leg backward to the opposite side of the bike. According to ESPN.com, Lavin landed without getting his feet back on to to the pedals after the trick and, as a result, was thrown from the bike, sustaining injuries and losing consciousness.
Homegrown: TJ Lavin
BMX super athlete and MTV host TJ Lavin is a homegrown Las Vegan who began riding the dusty desert before age three. Today, Lavin both works and plays in Las Vegas, spending most of his days riding the BMX course that he built into his backyard or taking refuge in a music studio where he's crafting a secondary career as a producer and rapper.
Lavin was well aware of the dangers of his sport. On October 13, local rider Ty Pinney crashed while practicing at Lavin's Las Vegas home and was put in intensive care with swelling in his brain. On October 14, Lavin tweeted "@HORRORPROJECT Ty update: the swelling in his brain is going down faster than expected He's not out of the woods yet but it is looking better!" Later that day, Lavin suffered his own serious crash.
The Dew Tour Championships will continue today with BMX-park preliminary rounds from 3:30-6 p.m. and skate-park finals inside the Joint from 6:30-8:30 p.m. The BMX dirt finals, the event in which Lavin was to compete, are scheduled for October 16 from 7:30-8:30 p.m.
Join the Discussion:
Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.
Full comments policy