F1's Guardian Angel, the lives saved and lost

Part Two, the lives saved and lost:

I'd like to take you back to the 1989 San Marino GP. Gergard Berger had just had an epic crash at the infamous Tamburello corner and is left unconscious. This is the same corner where Senna would have his fatal accident 5 years later. As Berger approached the corner, pretty much flat out, a mechanical malfunction leaves him heading straigth towards the wall and out of control. The Ferrari hit, hard, into the concrete wall and spun around "like a whirlwind of bent metal" before finally coming to a rest at the corner's exit. And bursts in fire. Even though it seems like an eternity, the fire marshals quickly blazed the engulfed cockpit after only burning for 23 seconds. Enter Dr. Sid Watkins, aka the Guardian Angel, exactly 27 seconds after the accident and despite of the fire heat still present, he works feverishly to revive the driver, whilst he was soaked with fuel gushing out of the Ferrari's fractured tanks. Berger recalled: "When I woke up, Sid was sitting on my chest, still trying to intubate me. He had saved me."

Just a year later during qualifying for the Spanish GP, Martin Donnelly's crash was so horrific that the fully seatbelted driver was thrown from the wreckage and was lying on the track. His Lotus teammate Derek Warwick summed it up best. For Martin Donnelly to have survived that accident was an act of God." Donnelly's Lotus had hit the barrier head on, the front of the car shattered, and he was thrown down the track, with only the seat attached to him. Nothing esle. The car was elsewhere, all over the place in fact. Sid rushes to Donnelly and finds his face blue with lack of oxygen. The doctor forces an airway down his nose, gently removes his crushed helmet, then carefully intubates Donnelly and gets him breathing again. He would later induce a coma lasting 14 days to ensure he remained still. "Sid most definately saved Martin's life," said Sir Frank Williams, who was also under Sid's care after he broke his neck in 1986.

It was legendary driver Sir Jackie Steward who initiated change in safety in F1. In 1970 he started bringing his own physician to races after he experienced a water-shed moment in 1966. He had a violent crash at Spa that left him unconscious. Seeing the severity of the crash, fellow-driver Graham Hill stopped and removed Stewart's fuel-soaked uniform including underwear, left him under the care of three nuns while he ran for help. When Stewart came to, he found himself surrounded by cigarette smoking spectators which were oblivious to the dangerous situation with fuel everywhere. "We were killing ourselves at the rate of one a month when I finally decided to quit [in 1973]," Stewart noted. "What that meant to an individual driver was that after five years in the sport, you had a two-out-of-three chance of being killed. 

Ronnie's Lotus

The accident that brought about the most changes was the one that killed Ronnie Peterson at the start of the 1978 Italian GP. Back then, the use of a medical car had not yet been introduced and Sid would follow the race from Race Control. At about three o'clock, the flag was dropped to start the race while some cars were still rolling into position. The first-lap melee occurred on approach to the Variente Goodyear. It was caused by Ricardo Patrese's Arrows touching James Hunt's McLaren, which spun into the swedish driver Ronnie Peterson's Lotus sending him spinning as well. Peterson goes nose first into a barrier on the right-hand side of the track, crushing the front of the car. Vittorio Brambrilla, who started from the back of the grid, tried to avoid the accident but his Surtees plows into Peterson's Lotus. The Lotus bursts into fames, in similar fashion as Niki Lauda's horrific accident two years earlier.



Ronnie is seen here raising his head.

A young Eddie Cheever, who was in the grandstands at Spa and saw this all happen, and recalls: "what happened next was a complete comedy of errors." Instead of the firemen, it was Hunt who finally rushed in and pulled Peterson out of the fire. To complicate the rescue further, the carabinieri had formed a human blockade to keep everyone else out of the area. They acted with force and prevented even Sid Watkins from getting to the accident. Unfortunately, this along with a further delay of 18 minutes for the ambulance to arrive surely cost Ronnie his life. 

Sid explained that delays in treating accident patients, can allow fat embolisms to travel from the wound to the heart and/or brain. "If that happens, it's game, set, and match," Watkins said. Furthermore, he pointed out that the possibility of this happening was augmented by the Italian surgeon who's first priority was a long operation to set Ronnie's 27 leg fractures, a stressful procedure for a trauma patient to tolerate. Later that night, as a result, of a piece of bone-marrow clogging an artery, resulting in his death.

He was conscious and aware.

"Ronnie did not have fatal injuries - or injuries that should have been life-threatening," Andretti charged. "He obviously, seriously, had an incredible amount of leg damage, and he had shock. But to die of an embolism in this day and age, it's unheard of. That's a Stone Age situation. And it absolutely had to have been the way he had been treated, in the hands of whoever had the responsibility at Monza at that time and in the hospital later that was caring for Ronnie. It was such a shame. I think if any positive can come out of a negative, it was the fact everybody realized after that, someone has to be absolutely in charge in situations like that. Probably an event like that made a big difference. Under Professor Watkins's care, Ronnie would have survived."

Sir Frank Williams

Sid is best remembered for his saves, as in lives. Besides Donnelly, Williams, and Berger, Didier Pironi is most often mentioned, not always in the best way.

It was pouring in the closing stages of the 1982 German GP qualifying session and Pironi has just secured pole. However, he kept practicing in the rain and had a very bad accident. Sid worked for 30 minutes in appalling conditions to save Pironi's life, while the driver kept begging Sid not to have his legs amputated. And so did Sid. Some called it a miraculous recovery. Pironi, who only criticized his rescuers died five years later racing powerboats.

Sir Jackie Steward commenting on Sid and Mika. " Sid saved Mika Häkkinen's life - twice! He jump-started Mika two times, right there on the track." During the 1995 Australian GP Häkkinen flipped his car and appeared lifeless when Sid arrived. Sid performed a tracheotomy right there on the spot after he got Häkkinen heart restarted once, but it stopped again due to lack of air. Schumacher on that situation, "Sid just took the right decision which in the end saved Mika's life. I can only speak positively about him."

Schumacher, Brawn, and Watkins

Micheal Schumacher was no stranger to the doctor either, for in 1999, he suffered a huge crash in which he shattered a leg. Others owe their lives, limbs, and or careers to Sid's expert and timely treatment include Nelson Piquet, Olivier Panis, Karl Wendlinger, Pierluigi Martini, J.J. Lehto, Christian Fittipaldi, Jos Verstappen, Luciano Burti.

There are those that the doctor didn't have a chance to save, drivers like Peterson, Paletti, and Gilles Villeneuve. The latter suffered a broken neck from the violent crash. It is said that his socks and shoes left him because of it.

And then, there is the one that would haunt him the most. The loss of his good friend Ayrton Senna.

This will be featured in part three, the final part of these series on Sid Watkins.

Sources: motorsportretro.com, atlasf1.com,

Pictures courtesy of: f1-grandprix.com and atlasf1.com.

F1's Guardian Angel, the accomplishments

In light of recent severe racing accidents I thought it worthwhile to revisit the story of F1's Guardian Angel. It is a long one full of interesting anecdotes, so I will post it in three parts.

Part One, The Accomplishments:

Dr. Sid Watkins, aka the Guardian Angel, aka The Flying Doctor, is best described as a cigar-chomping, down-to-earth doctor who has saved the lives of more eternally gratefull F1 luminaries than any single new safety device, track redesign, or rules change - although he was the catalyst for many of them. Now in his eighties, the white-haired grandfather is one of those rare, charismatic, larger-than-life characters for whom there is no replacement.

The son of a mineworker, Sid Watkins (Sid) got a scholarship to medicine at the University of Liverpool. "I was interested in the human brain from the very beginning," explained Sid. In 1958 he finished his studies and went to work at the local hospital. By then his father, who had quit mining, started a garage a needed a cheap mechanic. And so, Sid started his days as a doctor, followed by house calls. Hereafter, he would join his father at the garage, occasionally pulling out his stethoscope to adjust dual carburetors. At night he would return to the hospital as doctor.

In 1962, at the age of 34, Sid was promoted to professor of neurosurgery at the University of New York, Syracuse. At the request of the British Auto Club (RAC), Sid went to Watkins Glen as one of the race doctors for the American GP, where he quickly showed leadership. He requested to send a team from Syracuse hospital to the track so as to be able to do complete diagnostic at the track, instead of driving by ambulance to the local hospital which might be closed. He returned to England in 1969 as professor of neurosurgery in London, and not long hereafter got involved with the British GP.

Sid and Jackie accepting a
Safety Award in Canada.

The push to have doctors at F1 races began in 1970, when Jackie Steward started bringing his own physician to the races. He was the first to do this and his reasoning behind it was an accident he had in 1966 that left him unconscious. Seeing the severity of the crash,  Graham Hill stopped and removed Stewart's fuel-soaked uniform (they were just uniforms back then) and underwear and ran for help. When Stewart came to, he found himself surrounded by cigarette smoking spectators which were oblivious to the dangerous situation with fuel everywhere. This was the moment that changed the course of safety in F1. Steward recalls those days, "We were killing ourselves at the rate of one a month when I finally decided to quit [in 1973]." What that meant to an individual driver was that after five years in the sport, you had a two-out-of-three chance of being killed.

In 1978 Sid got a call from Bernie Ecclestone, who he had never met prior, and had something he medically wanted checked. Soon the consultation turned into a conversation with Bernie trying to find out what kind of person Sid was. Hereafter came the pitch. Bernie was of the opinion that the medical conditions in F1 where insufficient, and varied from race to race. He wanted all this changed and offered the doctor $35.000 to fly and be present at all 16 races. Sid was impressed by Bernie's clear vision and accepted the offer. Only later did he realized that he had to pay for his own lodging and travel expenses.

Drivers like - Nikki Lauda, Mario Andretti, James Hunt, and Carlos Reutemann - were quite happy when Sid came onboard as F1's first chief surgeon. They thought, here is a man who would fix them when broken. Little did they know that Sid would endeavor to keep them from getting broken in the first place.

In the beginning, Sid had to work out of a motorhome that was outfitted as a medical center. Capacity: one patient. The rate of change was relatively slow, until later that year, when Ronnie Peterson crashed hard in the Italian GP. Even though his injuries were not life threatening, Ronnie died due to a wide range of things that went horribly wrong that day, namely: the police allowed no one to get to the driver still inside the burning car, the ambulance took way too long (by some accounts 18 minutes) to get to the accident, and the surgeon at the hospital used the wrong treatment for trauma victims.

At Watkins Glen the pace of change picked up considerable. Sid had the mandate he wanted: better safety equipment, an anesthetist, an intervention car, and a medical helicopter. All of this was under his direct control. Sid and anesthetist Peter Byles were to chase the field around the track on the always dangerous first lap, as fast as the medical car would go, so that in case of an accident it could be there immediately. The car was driven by a professional driver, but when Sid showed up for the start of the race, he found "a nervous, sweating, obese gentlemen at the wheel, and obviously uncomfortable with the task at hand." Their high-speed pursuit of the field didn't not progress beyond the first corner, for the driver (who shall remain nameless) clipped the curb and got the medical car so airborne that when it landed it was considered a total loss.
And so began a long, twisting, and often hilarious search for a proper medical pursuit car. They tried all the exotics, like Ferraris, Lamborghinis and others, but all were found to be compact. On the other hand, vans and ambulances were far too slow. The medical-car conundrum was solved back in the late 1990's when Sid worked out a deal for a couple of specially equipped Mercedes Benz 500 station wagons. 

Over the years F1 has had many famous drivers at the wheel of the medical-car, such a Jack Brabham, Sir Stirling Moss, Innes Ireland, Phill Hill, Jody Schekter and Nikki Lauda. Often idle F1 drivers filled in too. His favourite driver was Alex Ribeiro (CART), even tough he crashed the medical-car hard in Monaco (2000) breaking several of the doctor's ribs. The accident was caused by ABS failure and so all was forgiven.

During three-time F1 champion Nikki Lauda one-race appearance in 1998 as Watkins's driver, said, "I have always agreed with Sid, with one exception - when he wanted to smoke a cigar in the car with me I said no." Maybe Sid got so angry at him that in order to make things right, Lauda once personally flew a Lauda Air 747 with Watkins and a few friends from Europe to Cuba to buy cigars.

In the early days, Sid's hospital in London had but two neurosurgeons. So they took turns at weekend shifts and adjusted their work around Sid's F1 race calender. For far away races Sid took vacation days off, so that he could be there. In any given year he worked 26 weekends at the hospital and 16 at F1 races. And even though it was hard work, he learned to know all of the drivers and even became a father figure to some. They considered Sid to be one of them and knew that he would be right there to tend to them, either during qualifying or the race.

Sid with good friend Ayrton Senna

When it came to reporting on the details of drivers medical conditions (in crash events), Sid never showed any emotion. However, everyone knew he was very sad. When asked if had lost his love for the sport after seeing so many die in accidents, he simply responded, "No. My life revolved around head injuries and car crashes. Combinations could be tragic. I was always deeply saddened when one of them died, especially because they were my friends. Fortunately that didn't happen often as safety was continuously improving." 

In 1994, the fatal crashes of Senna and Ratzenberger shocked the world. If you take into consideration  the testing crashes of Lehto, Lamy, Alesi and Montermini, the F1 world had in just a couple of weeks 6 severe crashes. And then, just eleven days later, Karl Wendlinger crashed hard in the practise session in Monaco. This was the last drop that made the cup run over, for the following day FIA president Max Mosley announced the formation of a new expert advisory group. The group was formed by race director Charlie Whiting, safety official Roland Bruynseraede, technical advisor Peter Wright, one F1 driver and one F1 designer, with Sid as president. Their mandate was to look into the design of the cars and their cockpits, to the guard rails and other parts of the circuit. The group, who had access to experts in several fields, had many parts tested and concentrated on side impact issues, steering linkages, crumble zones fore and aft. The crash tests were expensive, but McLaren provided them with a chassis so as to quickly get things going. Max Mosley provided funds to finance the tests needed. And then came the herculean task of getting the teams to adopt them. At one point Sid wanted a cushion behind the driver's head, something the FIA agreed with. However, nothing gets done in F1 by merely suggesting it. If it weighs more than a couple of hundred grams the teams won't mount it to their cars. Not only must it be mandated by the FIA, it must hold up to the scrutiny of the teams too.

This is a list of things Sid has lobbied for: stronger seats, wider safety belts, reinforced "survival cell" cockpits, collapsing steering columns, stronger roll bars, puncture-resistant fuel cells, wheel-tether anchors, and energy-absorbing padding for F1 cars. He also advocated for: better helmets, shoes, racing suits and gloves. And for the circuits, he has successfully campaigned for: better runoff areas, redesign of dangerous corners, elimination of catch fencing, permanent medical centers, full medical and emergency crew staffing, and much more.

Sid talking to Bernie Ecclestone

Bernie Ecclestone realized early on that the manufacturers were only focused on winning, and that the increased fatalities would refrain F1 from growing. His legendary iron hand was needed to back up Sid on more than one occasion during their crusade for a safer F1. " Bernie provided it without question, as he has every time I've asked him for something." Sid emphasized. "His commitment to safety is unwavering."

In 2004 Sid decided it was enough and passed the baton to Gary Hartstein. "It wasn't that I didn't want to do it anymore, but it was due the very long flights. Once I calculated that I spend 140 days at the race track and another 82 days on a plane. Besides, F1 has changed completely in comparison to the nineteen-seventies. It is not as much fun as before."

Being a smoker, Sid reflects on his good health at his age, by saying that it may be due to a rigid regimen of hand-rolled Cubans and single-malt Scotch wiskey. Further, he reported no lasting effect on the Ribeiro induced rib injury. Besides, he has been burned by both lit and unlit fuel, impaled by carbon-fiber shards, and hobbeld by a torn ankle tendon from running to the aid of a crashed driver.


Professor Eric Sidney Watkins has had a brilliant carreer as one of the world's most respected neurosurgeons on both sides of the pond. He is the founder of the Brain & Spine Foundation and has led research in the field of Parkinson, and many other deceases. The word "love" best describes the paddocks feelings for the man who presided over no less than 424 F1 races doing irreplaceable work. 

Books by Sid:
- Life at the Limit: Triumph and Tragedy in Formula One, ISBN 0760303150
- The Science of Safety: The Battle Against Unacceptable Risks in Motor Racing, ISBN 1859606644
- Beyond the Limit, ISBN 0330481967.

Sources: Car & Driver, 2002, article by Jerry Garret, and Avanti 2009, article by Simon Taylor.

Pictures courtesy of, among others: Motorsports.com, Avanti 2009.