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S Santosh a prominent Indian motorcyclist racer had undergone a crash during the ongoing Dakar rally in Saudi Arabia and was immediately airlifted to Riyadh and was put in-to a medically induced coma. The 37-year-old racer on Wednesday crashed when he was representing Hero Moto Sport in one of the largest sports rallies of the world. The motorcyclist is currently under 24 hours of observation.

Hero Moto Sport in a tweet said “In an unfortunate incident @cs-Santosh22 suffered a crash in stage 4 of #Dakar2021 today. He has been taken to a hospital in Riyadh. In the initial assessment he seems stable. Join us in wishing him a speedy recovery.”

The racer is suspected to have a head injury according to the medical reports and when the paramedics arrived on the scene he was conscious before he was taken to Riyadh. Last year on the same stage a similar incident had occurred where the Hero Moto Sport rider Paulo Gonsalves died while competing. Hero Moto Sport withdrew itself from the Dakar Rally 2020 after the death of Gonsalves.

Santosh crashed 135 Km on gravel track into the stage and had to forfeit the stage. This was also Snatosh’s seventh attempt at the Dakar Rally which is considered to be the world’s most grueling motorsport event off-road. In 2015 he was the first ever Indian to compete in the race and replicated in two future editions.

In the 2013 Abu Dhabi desert challenge Santosh nearly had a fatal accident as he suffered burns in his neck this Suzuki MX450X caught fire. The rally scheduled in January 2-16 was in 12 stages and had competitors transverse 7646 Km. Incidentally the fourth stage is the longest stage of the rally which spans to a total of 813 Kms.