Liam McCracken sat in the waiting room for the optometrist to call his name. The flashbacks were strong.
The circumstances of his hospital visit this time were much different than the last time he was there. This time, McCracken (8-1) needed a routine eye exam in order to pass his medicals for a massive opportunity: Dana White’s Contender Series.
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But that previous time? The future was much less certain, and significantly less bright.
“Just walking around there, the last time I was in there, I was in a wheelchair getting pushed around,” McCracken recently told MMA Junkie. “Now, I’m in there getting my eyes tested to make sure I can go fight for the UFC. I’m very, very proud of myself to get to the point that I don’t think a lot of people would’ve.”
The bus’ horn sounded, but he never heard it – or at least that’s his theory. He doesn’t really know for sure what he heard or didn’t hear, or saw or didn’t see. McCracken, 25, has no recollection of the incident that forever changed his life. It makes sense, considering he was unconscious for long after the point of impact.
He’s had to piece the scene together from first-hand accounts. This is what he’s come up with.
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“I’m just a bad crosser of the road,” McCracken said. “I’m still going to get run over to this day. I’ve just got no road awareness. I was running across the road with headphones on and was getting beeped by the driver. I had headphones on full blast so I didn’t hear him and slow down. I got completely dragged by it. I got found unconscious at the back at the bus where it drove me 60 feet on the floor. Everyone who seen it thought I was dead. I was in a bad away. It was a serious, serious accident and one I shouldn’t even be here. Literally, I should be dead for what happened, never mind if I survived it. I shouldn’t be walking. I shouldn’t be talking. Life works in mad ways and I do feel like I’m protected by something great.”
McCracken is lucky to even be able to walk. The injuries were horrific. He broke his spine in four places; his ribs in three. His pelvis was broken, as was his nose. Disks bulged from his neck. His MCL was torn, as was the skin down his leg. His head, ear, lip, and nose all required surgery. There were 20 broken bones in total. He was torn up, and had to undergo substantial skin grafting.
At the time, he was barely 22 years old and was being conceived as a future major MMA champion. In an instant, that dream and more were nearly taken from him.
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“I’ve got unbelievable people around me, my family, my team, everyone around me,” McCracken said. “I’ve got really good people around me. Without them, it would’ve been literally impossible. I also had a lot of people help out with my recovery, like a place Concordia Clinic in Liverpool. As soon as I got out of the hospital they had me in there nearly every day, doing things like oxygen therapy and getting treatments off different people. I’m just really blessed with the people I’ve got around me through fighting and just through my family and my team. Without them, it would’ve been impossible for me to get back fighting. A lot of its down to other people and also down to my own mentality. I just kept chipping away day by day and it took two years to get back in the cage. I gave up a little bit of time, but I always came back too. Like I said, I just kept chipping away until I got back now.”
Even as recently as 18 months ago, McCracken’s fighting future was in doubt. But he never quit on himself. He remained diligent with all of his physical therapy and other medical appointments – including a weekly back X-ray. Doing everything he could, McCracken needed nature to show him some luck – and it did.
In September, nearly two years to date the date of the accident, McCracken made his improbable return to the cage and defeated Jhon Bryan by first-round rear-naked choke. It was an emotional moment. The kid who was told he’d never fight again was fighting – and winning. He won two more fights before the UFC came calling.
“My first fight back, I still had a lot of stuff going on, to be honest, physically,” McCracken said. “I was just testing my body out to see if I was going to be able to get back to doing it. It was more just a test run like, ‘Let’s test it and see how it goes.’ It went well. I was disappointed in my performance because I’m very critical. Anyone who is a high achiever or wants to be a high achiever is critical of themselves. I wasn’t happy with that. I wanted to knock the kid out. I had this dream image in my head of how I wanted to fight to look and the just the moment felt a bit overwhelming. I couldn’t believe I was actually fighting. I wasn’t very present in the fight. I just needed to come back and get it done and it was nice to look back, obviously.”
Entering his Dana White’s Contender Series 90 bout Tuesday vs. Silvestre Sanchez (9-1) at Meta APEX in Las Vegas, McCracken admits he still has some healing to do. He’s not perfect, but he’s perfect enough.
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“Obviously, I’ve still go things wrong with me, not how they should be. I got hit by a bus,” McCracken said. “But if it went a little bit worse, I wouldn’t be fighting. They’re all manageable. I’m very fortunate in that way that everything I needed in my recovery to go well, went well.”
McCracken thinks a UFC contract will be his after the brass get their first taste of what he’s serving up. If achieved, the end goal will be even sweeter, given the road it took to get there.
“(It would mean) everything,” McCracken said. “It’s like fulfilling a childhood dream. That little 10-year-old kid who started out would’ve that never thought he could’ve got to that point, to literally living out your childhood dream. It’s crazy. I’m not trying to get too caught up in what that’s going to feel like because I’ve got a job to do first. I just think I’m enjoying it all as it happens and it comes, because it’s not going to come if you don’t do what you need to do. That’s what my job and my focus is completely, completely on. That moment, it’s going to be special, especially after all the obstacles that I had to get through to get here, it’s going to make it even more sweet when it happens.”
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: ‘Protected’: UFC hopeful Liam McCracken recounts miraculous rebound after being hit by bus
