Aaron Merriman, harness racing's leading dash driver in 2010 who was injured Friday in a spectacular four-horse pile-up at The Meadows, is being treated for two broken wrists and a broken left elbow.
His sister, Kerry Merriman, said he underwent successful surgery on his right wrist shortly after arriving at Allegheny General Hospital and will undergo surgery on his broken elbow over the next few days. She said treatment of the left wrist is uncertain, as doctors try to determine how much of the damage is new and how much is attributable to a previous fracture that healed incompletely.
She said he expressed frustration with the lengthy rehabilitation he knows lies ahead, but that his attitude and condition had improved so much by Saturday afternoon that he was upgraded from a trauma unit to a standard patient room.
The mishap was triggered when Merriman's horse in the 11th race, Sound Dragin, fell while moving for the lead on the outside near the three-quarter pole. In a sickening chain reaction, Merriman was thrown to the ground, and three horses in the eight-horse field could not clear the fallen pair. The drivers of those horses, Ray Paver, Tony Hall and Kyle Bolon, also were spun from their sulkies.
Paver was transported to Canonsburg Hospital and released after an examination revealed no serious injuries. He was bruised and sore generally, however, and called off his Saturday drives. Hall and Bolon suffered no serious injuries and were able to complete their Friday driving assignments. All four horses walked from the track with no apparent serious injuries. Merriman, a 31-year-old native of Macedonia, Ohio, who notched his 4,000th career victory last December, drives regularly at both The Meadows and Northfield Park. As of June 2, he had compiled 339 wins this year. (The Meadows)
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