Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
Read KSL's Take here (KSL Sports) The flip-side of an extreme sport has a BMX star from Murray fighting for his life. There are two sides to extreme BMX biking, extreme reward and extreme risk. Murray's Mike Aitken was caught on the wrong side.
Aitken is a BMX cycling superstar. He just won the gold medal in the BMX dirt competition last month here at the Dew Tour's Salt Lake City event.
But right now, 25 year old Aitken is in critical condition at a Bethlehem Pennsylvania hospital. On Sunday, while filming a video, he over-rotated a 360-spin in mid-air landing on his head. He has suffered brain injuries and multiple facial fractures. Aitken has not regained consciousness. His parents and wife are there with him in the hospital.
While Aitken battles for his life and doctors work to save him, the bills are mounting. Aitken has no health insurance. According to his website "he's deemed uninsurable" due to the high-risk nature of his profession. You can help by donating to help pay for his treatment by clicking on the related link to the right.
Doctors are hopeful about his recovery, but the last update on his website indicated damage to Aitken's brain stem. Ironically, according to reports, Aitken had mostly given up competitions for video shoots.
