Watkins appraised him. Senna’s eyes were closed and he was deeply unconscious. Instinctively Watkins forced a tube into his mouth to obtain effective airflow. Watkins shouted for blood – his team already knew Senna’s blood type: B+.
By then the other race cars had stopped going around and the crowd was silent. Senna looked serene as Watkins did what he had to, and raised his eyelids. He remembered: “It was clear from his pupils that he had had a massive brain injury. I knew from seeing the extent of his injury that he could not survive.” The medics lifted him out of the car. The blood was still flowing. They lay him on the ground, as marshals held up sheets to shield him from view. Watkins said: “As we did he sighed and, though I am totally agnostic, I felt his soul departed at that moment.”
There was only one photographer at Tamburello that afternoon. Angelo Orsi, a close friend of Senna’s and the picture editor of Autosprint, the Italian racing magazine, leapt over the wall when the car came to rest and started snapping. He took close-ups of Senna in the car and after his helmet was removed, and then when he was being treated on the ground, before marshals blocked his view. Galvao Bueno was watching Orsi on television, and said: “He aimed and shot, without even seeing exactly what he was getting.”
Adriane Galisteu was watching anxiously on television. She looked at his feet for signs of life, for she understood what she called the language of feet. She saw no movement. His feet told her he was dead, but she put that thought completely from her mind. By then the housekeeper was a screaming wreck, and Senna’s close neighbours had started to arrive at the house to see if there was anything they could do. Although people at the circuit were calm, on television viewers had seen everything. The sharper-eyed had seen blood seeping from the car like oil; it carried on as Senna lay on the ground, staining the track red. It was not obvious unless you knew what to look for. Later it would be revealed that Senna had suffered a burst temporal artery and lost 4.5 litres of blood.
In the TV Globo cabin, Bueno could not see what Watkins could, but he was reading the body language of Watkins and the doctors: “At the moment of the disaster, by the way it happened and by the way he was rescued, I knew that it was extremely serious, but I had to continue to commentate on the race until the end. Bueno had already had a difficult time on Friday when the young Brazilian driver Rubens Barrichello was taken to hospital.
Frank Williams was watching in the Williams pit; Alain Prost was alongside him. They anxiously scanned the monitors. Williams had experienced death at the track when his driver Piers Courage lost his life in 1970; 24 years on, the same emotions stirred.
Roaming around the garden at Quinta do Lago, Senna’s dog also seemed to sense that his master was in trouble and began barking loudly. The neighbours’ dogs started to bark. Neyde da Silva called Adriane from the farm at Tatui for information. Adriane had none. After that the telephone never stopped, as neighbours congregated at the house. The peaceful retreat had suddenly turned to bedlam.
Dr Pezzi, one of the trackside medics, got on with intubating Senna and, under Watkins’ supervision, the team inserted several IV infusions into the inert form. They had to clear the respiratory passages; stem the blood flow and replace lost blood; and immobilise the cervical area. After that was done Senna had a faint pulse. Watkins followed procedure and decided Senna should go straight to Maggiore Hospital for urgent treatment in intensive care conditions, although he knew it would be fruitless. He radioed for the medical helicopter and asked Dr Giovanni Gordini, the intensive care anaesthetist in charge of the circuit’s medical centre, to accompany Senna to Maggiore.
The helicopter quickly arrived but Watkins decided not to accompany Senna as he realised that there was nothing he could do. As medics loaded Senna into the helicopter at around 2:35pm, he took a call on his personal radio from Martin Whitaker, the FIA’s press supremo, who was with Bernie Ecclestone in his grey motorhome parked by the paddock gates. Ecclestone wanted information. With Whitaker and Ecclestone was Leonardo da Silva.
Senna was still alive, and Watkins told Whitaker the problem was his head. Over the crackly radio, Whitaker mistakenly misheard him as saying he was dead. This would cause much unhappiness later. Whitaker whispered to Bernie Ecclestone who was eating an apple. Ecclestone saw no point in hiding the truth from Leonardo and told him his brother was dead. He said: “I’m sorry, he’s dead, but we’ll only announce it after the end of the race.” Whilst he was doing this Ecclestone was coping with his own personal grief, and he calmly tossed the apple core over his shoulder. Ecclestone knew that, of all people, he had to remain calm. He was already thinking ahead to what Senna’s death would mean, sub-consciously making plans and weighing up every possibility. Leonardo mistook his calmness as indifference and disrespect for his brother, and was astonished that plans were going ahead to restart the race with his brother dead. He was almost beside himself with grief, and although it was quickly established what Watkins had really said, the damage was done: Senna’s brother lost control. Ecclestone told Whitaker to fetch Josef Leberer immediately to help Leonardo with his grief. The younger brother was distraught. His last words to his brother had not been friendly and they were still arguing about Adriane that morning.
Meanwhile, as the helicopter ascended, Watkins picked up Senna’s helmet. But as he looked around, he couldn’t find either his own gloves or Senna’s. Neither pair was ever seen again. As he looked for them, another drama was happening in the air. The 20-minute helicopter ride was barely three minutes old when Senna’s heart stopped. Dr Gordini worked on him frantically, and finally got it going again.
Adriane watched Senna’s motionless body being loaded into the helicopter. Someone pointed out the red stain on the ground after he been moved. It startled her. A neighbour tried to reassure her, saying it was a new kind of fire extinguisher foam. She believed it at the time, thinking to herself: “Nobody ever thought Ayrton Senna would die in a racing car. Neither had I.”
Meanwhile, Sid Watkins was driven at speed back to the circuit’s medical centre. He quickly told the centre’s Dr Servadei details of Senna’s condition, so that he could brief Maggiore hospital by telephone for Senna’s arrival. In reality he knew there was nothing they would be able to do, other than going through the motions. Watkins doubted Senna could last long, even with the help of a life-support machine. Like Ecclestone, Senna had been a close personal friend, and Watkins was having to deal with his own personal grief at the same time as organising Senna’s care. Watkins turned round and saw that Josef Leberer had come into the medical centre. They didn’t need to exchange words. Leberer remembered: “I saw Professor Watkins and he just looked in my eyes and then I knew it was going to be a very serious thing. He didn’t say anything.” After the silence, Watkins briefed him. At that moment Whitaker finally tracked down Leberer and a message arrived for him to go urgently to Bernie Ecclestone’s motorhome.
Leberer found Senna’s brother Leonardo in a high state of distress. Leberer said: “I had to calm his brother down.” At that point, Leonardo thought his brother was dead after the misheard radio conversation. Leberer told him he was in a serious state but still alive and they should get to Maggiore as soon as possible. Leonardo calmed down enough to phone his parents in Brazil from the motorhome telephone. Meanwhile, Ecclestone arranged for his helicopter to take them to the hospital. They left immediately with Julian Jakobi following.
Ecclestone went off to confer with Max Mosley, the FIA president. Afterwards he toured the pitlane, assuring everyone that everything was being done for Senna. What he was sure of was that the race would restart and run to a conclusion. It always did. That was the way of Formula One. Like Frank Williams, emotions from 1970 were flooding over Ecclestone. Months after Williams had lost Piers Courage, he had lost Jochen Rindt who he had managed. But no one could sense his turmoil. Ecclestone was doing what he had always done for Formula One: creating stability in a very unstable environment.
With Leonardo on his way to Maggiore, An
tonio Braga called his wife Luiza, who was in their house in Sintra near Lisbon with their teenage daughters Joanna and Maria. He told her to phone Adriane and tell her to get to Bologna as soon as possible. Braga knew that Senna was dying but thought there would be time for her to say goodbye. He told Luiza to charter her a plane from Faro to bring her to Bologna. Braga went back to the TV Globo cabin.
Luiza, who had also been following events on television, called Quinta do Lago. She told Adriane it was extremely serious: “Braga called me from Imola. It’s extremely serious. You have to go there immediately.” Adriane replied: “Luiza, come with me. Don’t leave me alone.”
Luiza agreed to accompany her there: she would charter a jet in Lisbon and pick Adriane up at Faro. She told her she would be there at around 5pm. The flight to Faro would only take half-an-hour, but renting a jet at short notice on a Sunday proved difficult and it would take three-and-a-half hours for Luiza Braga to hire the plane and fly to Faro.
After putting the phone down, Braga discussed with Galvao Bueno what they should do. They agreed to leave for the hospital straight after the race. Braga called Senna’s father Milton, who was following the race on television with his wife Neyde. He told them it was serious and to stand by to come to Bologna.
Meanwhile the drivers had no idea what had happened, other than that Senna had had an accident. As they formed up on the grid for the restart, people were saying there was no problem, that he was out of the car; others were saying there was a big problem. Gerhard Berger remembered: “At the time I didn’t realise how bad it was. I didn’t see his accident as I was in the car behind him but you get a feeling from the atmosphere, and there was a strange atmosphere.”
Like Ecclestone, Watkins calmly went about his business. He replenished his medical bag from the stores in the medical centre and walked back to his car to await the restart.
Prior to that, just before 3 o’clock, the wreckage of Senna’s car was brought to the parc fermé and put in the steward’s garage, under the care of Fabrizio Nosco. Patrick Head was aware of how serious the accident was, as he and Frank Williams had been briefed by Bernie Ecclestone. The gravity was confirmed when the car had not been brought straight back to the Williams garage. Head was anxious to see the telemetry and sent two of his mechanics to the garage to fetch the black boxes. Nosco, a technical commissioner, politely refused them entry. He told them that, under FISA rules, no one could touch the car. They went away and returned with FISA’s technical delegate, Charlie Whiting, who ordered Nosco to remove the boxes and hand them to the mechanics. Nosco said: “Whiting told me to open up the garage and that he had permission from John Corsmit, the FIA security chief that day. He told me to remove the black boxes.
“The Renault engine box was situated behind the cockpit. I removed it with a pair of large pliers. The Williams chassis box was behind the radiator near the back wheel, on the right wing of the car. I have seen thousands of these devices and removed them for checks. The two boxes were intact, even though they had some scratches. The Williams device looked to have survived the crash.”
Back at the Williams garage, engineer Marco Spiga tried to retrieve the data. But power had been lost to the box and wiped the memory. Although the box was basically intact, the connectors had been badly damaged in the accident. Spiga said: “The Williams box was totally unreadable when we got it back.” They had more luck with the Renault box, and the data was transferred to a diskette.
At 2:55pm, 37 minutes after Senna’s crash, the race was restarted. Five minutes later, the helicopter carrying Senna landed in front of Maggiore hospital. Doctors rushed out and wheeled him straight into intensive care for a brain scan that would only confirm the diagnosis made at the track. At 3:10pm his heart stopped again. The doctors were able to restart it, before putting him in a clean room on a life-support machine.
In Brazil, the streets of the major cities were quiet on that Sunday morning, as the whole country woke from its slumbers as the news spread and huddled in front of television sets, hanging on Galvao Bueno’s every word. Bueno was well aware that, since the accident, probably half of the Brazilian population had woken up and was watching his broadcast and listening to his words. He also knew that Milton and Neyde da Silva and Senna’s sister Viviane would be watching. He found it a terrible responsibility: “They were all listening to me, hoping I would say some good news. Reginaldo and Antonio, who was like a father to Ayrton, kept looking at me speechless, having the same worry. Through my earphones I was constantly being pushed forward by our manager, and also from our studios in Brazil they kept asking me to go on. At least three times I left the cabin to catch some breath. And because I had this great friendship with Ayrton, people started coming to our cabin, Rubinho’s [Barrichello’s] manager, Christian’s [Fittipaldi’s] girlfriend, everybody apparently expecting something to hope for.” But TV Globo had the best sources of information, and a reporter at the studio had given two bulletins on Senna’s condition, warning that his brain damage was severe.
The later it got, the streets of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo stayed eerily deserted at around 8am local time. As Senna struggled for life, and TV Globo commentators predicted the worst, millions of Brazilians held their breath, not quite believing what they were witnessing on live television.
Meanwhile, Berger led the restarted race for the first 11 laps before pitting with a suspension problem. Berger remembered: “I was just thinking ‘shit, what is happening now?’”
On lap 41 a wheel had flown off Michele Alboreto’s Minardi car at the pit exit and flown into a crowd of Lotus mechanics. It hadn’t been fastened properly at a pitstop. Alboreto was almost glad. He jumped out of his car, dumped his helmet in the pit garage and ran to the medical centre to talk to the Italian doctors. They told him the full truth of what had happened to Senna. After a brief discussion in Italian, Alboreto walked glumly back to the Ferrari garage to speak to his old team-mate Berger, who by then had got out of his car, having retired from the restarted race on lap 14. Alboreto told him: “It’s very bad with Ayrton, he’s in hospital in Bologna and very critical.” Berger said: “Why are all these things happening?”
Ten minutes before the end of the race, Bueno realised that it would take them too long to get to the hospital by car with all the race traffic. He told Braga to go and find a helicopter. Braga went off and found Jo Ramirez, the McLaren team manager, who organised it. Brazilian driver Christian Fittipaldi sent a note to his broadcast cabin asking him if he could accompany them to the hospital. Bueno sent a message back to be ready.
For Sid Watkins, the next two hours were terrible, as he watched the cars go by. It seemed interminable. But he breathed a sigh of relief as the race finally ended at 4:20pm with no further incident. Michael Schumacher, Senna’s natural successor, inevitably won. He and the other drivers on the podium, Nicola Larini and Mika Häkkinen, had little idea of Senna’s condition but their faces revealed that they feared the worse.
As soon as the race was over, Bueno threw off his headphones and left the studio back in Brazil to carry on. By this time Bueno knew Senna was dying and he wanted to be there when he did; not out of any professional duty, as he wanted no part in the reporting of his friend’s demise, but out of personal duty. He rushed straight to the Arrows motorhome. Fittipaldi was half-dressed and pleaded for Bueno to wait. Bueno told him to come to the McLaren motorhome, where there was a crowd of people surrounding Antonio Braga, including Gerhard Berger, Ron Dennis and Jo Ramirez. Berger was recommending that Braga call a neurosurgeon he knew in Paris who had once saved Jean Alesi from brain damage after an accident. Berger said that he could organise a jet to bring the doctor from Paris. Braga told him to get on with it. Bueno waited impatiently for Fittipaldi to arrive.
Sid Watkins ran back to the medical centre and found Lotus team principal Peter Collins waiting for him, looking for news about Senna. Collins and Watkins were close friends; the professor was closer to Collins than to any other team principal. Collins
had come to find out about Senna, but he pretended concern over his mechanics, whom he already knew were alright. When Watkins told Collins his mechanics would be fine, Collins asked him if Senna was in a bad way and Watkins simply said ‘yes’. When he asked him if there was any hope, he shook his head and simply said ‘no’. Collins was the first of the Formula One fraternity to find out the truth that all the others feared.
Bologna’s chief medical officer Dr Maria Theresa Fiandri had been called out to Maggiore hospital, and she took charge. She was interviewed by a local reporter who had been tipped off. She told him that surgery was out of the question.
Half-an-hour later, several dozen reporters and some TV crews had arrived. At 4:30pm, Dr Fiandri read out a clinical bulletin. She said Ayrton Senna had brain damage, with haemorrhaged shock and was in a deep coma. She told the reporters there would be another bulletin at 6 o’clock.
The Italian police, tipped off that the accident was probably fatal, had arrived shortly before the end of the race and taken away Senna’s helmet.
When Sid Watkins had finished at the medical centre, he knew his place was at the hospital. He quickly changed, leaving his overalls strewn on the floor, and ran to the medical helicopter, which had returned from Maggiore. With Dr Servadei for company, he took off straight for the hospital. He also wanted to get away from the gloom that had fallen over Imola. It was a terrible place to be at that moment.
Bueno, fed up with waiting, told his friends to meet him at the helicopter pad. He rushed back to Arrows to collect Fittipaldi. He ran into Jose Pinto of the Portuguese TV company, threw him the keys to his hire car, and told him to give them to Reginaldo Leme, with instructions to meet him at Maggiore.
The Life of Senna Page 47