A Mexican boxer has revealed her parents were told she was going to die from a brain injury she suffered during a fight in Glasgow.
Alejandra Ayala was knocked out in the 10th round of her WBA and IBO super-welterweight title fight against Scotland’s Hannah Rankin at the OVO Hydro in May.
The boxer was treated in the ring before being transferred to Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, where she received life-saving treatment.
Sharing a picture of the huge scar on her shaved head, Alejandra, 33, from Tijuana, said doctors were forced to put her into a medically induced coma before carrying out multiple surgeries. Medics told her parents, Maria Elena and Vincente, who had travelled from Mexico, that their daughter was unlikely to survive.
Then, before a third operation, doctors warned her devastated parents the boxer would likely wake unable to walk or talk. But thanks to the skills of Scottish medical teams, she’s now back home in Mexico to continue her recovery.
Alejandra, who doesn’t blame Hannah and accepts it was a risk of the fight, said: “I was hit in a manner that caused me to end the fight and I had to go to the hospital where I had CT scans in the emergency department.
“The result was a very bad bruise on the left side and I became confused. As I became physically worse, I was induced and given an urgent surgery to resolve the bleeding.
“My intracranial pressure rose dangerously so I was taken back to the operating room where I was given a second emergency surgery. A big piece of my head bone was removed and put in my tummy in order to decompress the swelling of the brain.
“Then 10 days later I was woken up from the induced coma and one week later a third surgery was performed to put back the bone.
“This was a long process where the doctors told my parents I was likely going to die before and during the first two surgeries. Then, before and after the third surgery, they told my parents I was probably not going to be able to walk, remember the past or talk.”
Alejandra spent more than two months in Glasgow receiving treatment but said her recovery is better than medics had hoped.
She has worked with speech and language therapists but admitted the injury has left her struggling to read, write and speak. She plans to continue her recovery at home in Mexico.
Posting on a fundraising blog to help pay for her medical bills, she added: “Today the whole initial head injury has made excellent recovery, I remember situations and people little by little. I am able to talk better week by week, to the point that the doctors can’t believe it.
“I have been working with speech and language therapists but I still struggle a lot to read, write and speak. I get confused.
“I woke up from my coma without being able to do anything physical. Due to physiotherapy, I can walk but I can’t go up and down stairs too well or do any workout that I used to do.
“I need occupational therapy to be able to do tasks such as cooking, cleaning and washing again. I have been informed this recovery will take about a year.”
In May world champion Rankin sent her best wishes to Alejandra. The 32-year-old, from Luss in Dunbartonshire, tweeted: “Our best wishes are with this brave, brave warrior. We will be on hand to support her in any way we can.”
