By Ian Chadband
LONDON, (Reuters) - Bob Champion, the former Grand National-winning jockey who has survived cancer and two heart attacks, says he is "incredibly lucky" to be alive having this month emerged largely unscathed from a fatal car crash.
Champion, whose victory aboard Aldaniti in the 1981 edition of Britain's most celebrated horse race became the stuff of movie legend, was at the centre of a four-vehicle motorway accident in south-east England on March 20.
From the central reservation he watched the frantic attempts of rescue services to save the life of the driver of a vehicle that had gone into the back of his.
"I escaped unscathed but I'm still sore, I can tell you," the 66-year-old Champion said in an interview with Reuters on Saturday.
"Neck, shoulders, back ... all suffered from whiplash but I'm all right, no bones broken, and actually I feel incredibly lucky.
"Tragically it wasn't the same for the poor gentleman who died at the scene. It makes me appreciate how lucky I am -- and I appreciate it every day."
The accident happened as traffic suddenly slowed during a busy afternoon on the M11 motorway.
The victim was killed when a camper van, which was also struck, ran into his vehicle from behind.
The pile-up left Champion bereft, not least because a child was a passenger in the victim's car.
"We'd been stopping and starting on the motorway and there was suddenly this great big 'bang, bang', I thought 'oh my God' and it shocked and stunned me," he said.
SO SORRY
"I just feel so sorry for the man and his family. Nobody deserves something so terrible.
"I just sat on the central reservation, with the motorway closed everywhere, and I could only watch as the medical staff did everything they possibly could to save him," added Champion.
"They were tremendous. I was there for an hour, two hours, but he died at the scene."
Champion, who always says his greatest trait is his stubbornness, refused to go to a nearby hospital but later took himself off for treatment at his doctor's near his home in England's racing heartland of Newmarket.
Once again Champion had defied the odds, just as he has done ever since he was told, when suffering from testicular cancer in 1980, that he had between five and eight months to live.
Within 12 months, though, he was riding Aldaniti, a one-time crippled horse with 'piano legs', to the most emotional Aintree victory of them all, one so unlikely it spawned the motion picture 'Champions' in which his heroic part was played by John Hurt.
The former jockey is still in demand to talk about what may well be the most important horse race in history -- it prompted Champion to start his own Cancer Trust that has raised more than 15 million pounds to research the disease.
"I'll be there on National day," he said, referring to the Liverpool steeplechase that will be held on April 11.
"I've missed only one in the 34 years since I won and that's when I had my first heart attack," said Champion who this week starts a five-venue mini tour of Grosvenor Casinos ahead of the National (www.theticketfactory.com/grosvenor).
His first heart attack came in 2001 and he suffered another, exactly 10 years later. Like the car accident, both happened in the month before the race.
"Indestructible?" laughed Champion. "I hope I am. As long as it keeps going that way."