Stephen Thompson loses arm after North West 200 accident

Popular Ulster road racer Stephen Thompson has had part of an arm amputated in the wake of a serious accident at the North West 200 in May.

The 39-year-old, who was riding for the Penz13.com team on a BMW, came off in the Superstock race in an incident involving Dean Harrison and Horst Saiger, which left a female spectator critically injured.

Harrison walked away unscathed while Saiger sustained a broken arm. The woman involved, Violet McAfee, has made a good recovery and has vowed to return to the event next year.

Thompson, from Crumlin, was badly hurt and sadly on Thursday his family revealed that he had undergone surgery to have part of an arm removed.

The statement said: "When Stephen had his accident he suffered a lot of injuries, his arm being one of the worst. He had the brachial plexus injury and a bad break in the forearm but lots of trauma to the arm.

"He has had lots of problems with the arm since that day. We went to the Ulster Hospital last Wednesday for a consultation and what we thought for a skin graft. They weren't happy with it so they admitted him with a view to operating on him immediately.

"He had an operation on his arm on the Thursday as they needed all the surgeons involved. The prognosis wasn't good and the surgeon didn't give us good news that night.

"They scheduled him in on Saturday for another operation on the arm but unfortunately that didn't go well either," the statement added.

"Stephen's arm suffered so much trauma in the accident and the forearm was suffering from muscle wastage and other problems with blood supply.

"The surgeons explained to us that it was infected and if they didn't act soon it could be a worse situation than we were in. Stephen had to make a life-changing decision - either to lose the lower part of his arm or we could lose him.

"Stephen made this decision on Sunday after speaking to the surgeons and today the operation was scheduled in. Stephen has come through today's surgery well and today is the start of the road to recovery."

A Go Fund Me page set up to raise money to assist with Stephen's rehabilitation has currently raised almost ?7,000 of its ?10,000 target.