Death
Jones died as a result of head injuries sustained in a fall and subsequent collision during the Brands Hatch round of the 2008 Supersport World Championship season.
The fall occurred at Clark Curve, a fast right-hand turn that leads into the home straight of the Brands Hatch circuit. At the time of the fall, Jones was in second position and challenging Jonathan Rea for the lead. As Jones accelerated out of the curve the rear wheel of his Honda CBR600RR lost traction and he was thrown across the track into the path of oncoming riders. The Australian rider Andrew Pitt attempted to take evasive action, but the front wheel and the footrest of his machine collided with Jones' helmet.
The race was immediately stopped by officials so that medical personnel could attend to Jones, and he was taken to the Brands Hatch medical center where Clinica Mobile doctors resuscitated him on four occasions. He was air-lifted by the Kent Air Ambulance to the Royal London Hospital. Jones' condition was assessed as 'extremely critical' upon his arrival and he was induced into a pharmacological coma by doctors in an attempt to stabilise his condition. This intervention was unsuccessful and Jones was pronounced dead by doctors shortly after 00.30 local time on 4 August 2008. As Jones was running second in the race at the time of the race stoppage, he moved up to fifth in the championship. Fellow racers Tommy Hill and James Toseland were at his bedside as he died.
Four-time world champion and former team boss of Jones, Carl Fogarty, said that "Craig was one of a crop of good young riders who were the future of British racing and I took a chance on him to ride for our team in 2006 because I thought he was the pick of the bunch."
Read more about this topic: Craig Jones (motorcycle Racer)
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Yet always when I look death in the face,
When I clamber to the heights of sleep,
Or when I grow excited with wine,
Suddenly I meet your face.”
—William Butler Yeats (18651939)
“But, when nothing subsists from a distant past, after the death of others, after the destruction of objects, only the senses of smell and taste, weaker but more enduring, more intangible, more persistent, more faithful, continue for a long time, like souls, to remember, to wait, to hope, on the ruins of all the rest, to bring without flinching, on their nearly impalpable droplet, the immense edifice of memory.”
—Marcel Proust (18711922)
“Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews and perfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in the face of Nature. What seems a kind of temporal death to people choked between walls and curtains, is only a light and living slumber to the man who sleeps afield.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (18501894)