VIDEO: Luisa Baptista is discharged from hospital three months after suffering an accident while training

Triathlete Luisa Baptista, hospitalized since December 2023 after suffering an accident while training in São Carlos, in the interior of São Paulo, was discharged this Monday afternoon. Luisa was in hospitals to undergo surgery and begin recovery for just over three months. Two of them, in a coma. Now, she will continue treatment for motor rehabilitation and dreams of returning to represent Brazil in major competitions.

Luisa received emergency care and was intubated at the scene of the accident. She was then taken to Santa Casa de São Carlos, where she was hospitalized. Emergency surgeries were performed, but the athlete still had difficulty breathing and clotting. The hospital did not have all the necessary infrastructure for care. The day after the accident, a team from Hospital das Clínicas went to São Carlos. Afterwards, Luisa was transferred by air to the capital of São Paulo, where she was admitted to the hospital at the USP Faculty of Medicine.

The athlete was transferred again, this time to the private Hospital São Luiz Itaim, on January 19. In mid-March, she underwent her last surgery before beginning the rehabilitation process at the Lucy Montoro network, in São Paulo. The last procedure was a shoulder correction. At the same time, Luisa shared a video in which she appeared taking her first steps after the accident.

From her hospitalization in São Carlos until part of the time she was at Hospital das Clínicas, the athlete used extracorporeal oxygenation therapy (ECMO). The procedure works with an artificial lung, according to the Brazilian Society of Cardiology (SBC) and is applied to patients with respiratory or cardiorespiratory failure. The blood is diverted from the patient’s heart, oxygenated in a membrane and reinserted into the body with the necessary oxygen, returning to the heart and circulating throughout the body.

The motorcyclist involved in the accident was not seriously injured. He didn’t have a license. According to the São Paulo Public Security Secretariat (SSP-SP), the case was registered as a negligent bodily injury. Estadão asked the secretariat about changes to the survey, but had not yet received a response until the publication of this article.

“I’m sorry, man, but you have to be penalized. It’s a lot of suffering for anyone who goes through the situation you caused,” Luisa said to Fantástico, on TV Globo, last Sunday.

Now, in addition to recovery, Luisa wants to be able to compete again, aiming for the next Olympic cycle. “I can’t wait to go back. I’m going to come back with all my strength, with all the certainty in the world. I’m privileged to have survived the accident. I was practically resurrected. I’m very grateful for that. I see myself at the Olympics in four years. I know that Paris is still very early. Who knows, in Lima (2027), I will be able to become two-time Pan-American champion. That is the goal for me”, he said on the Sunday program.

Luisa was champion at the 2019 Lima Pan-American Games, in Peru. She won the gold medal in the women’s individual triathlon race and in the mixed relay, alongside Vittoria Lopes, Manoel Messias, and Kauê Willy. She was placed 32nd at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. At the time of the accident, the athlete was seeking to improve her position in the sport’s ranking to qualify for the Paris Olympics.