Juan Matute Guimon Reported “100%” Successful Surgery to Repair “Congenital Malformation” in Brain
5 years ago StraightArrow Comments Off on Juan Matute Guimon Reported “100%” Successful Surgery to Repair “Congenital Malformation” in Brain
May 9, 2020
By KENNETH J. BRADDICK
Juan Matute Guimon was reported to have undergone “100%” successful surgery in Madrid Saturday to repair a “congenital malformation” in his brain that led to him collapsing five days ago.
Surgery on the 22-year-old Spanish team rider was undertaken at Jiménez Díaz Foundation hospital’s brain neurosurgery unit where he had been transferred Friday.
The operation on Juan began at 10:00 local time (4 a.m. US Eastern Time) and was about seven hours.
Paula Matute, Juan’s 24-year-old sister, reported her brother will remain in the hospital for another week to recover.
“Brother, today you beat your personal record,” Paula reported. “Surgery was a SUCCESS with a score of 100%. Now they will keep you at rest one more week so you can recover from the surgery, but the following week you will be back to us all.”
In the past five days, hundreds of thousands of messages of support have been sent to Juan from around the world.
Juan had been transferred to Jiménez Díaz Foundation hospital Friday from the Hospital Universitario la Paz where he was admitted when collapsing Tuesday after riding.
The cause of the collapse was reported by sources within the hospital to be bleeding from a rupture in a critical and difficult to reach part of the brain.
He underwent a three-hour operation at La Paz hospital Wednesday that was successful in stopping the bleeding.
Juan became an American citizen along with his family two years ago and a decade after moving to Wellington, Florida but continued to ride under the Spanish flag. On the world standings, he is the second and third highest Spanish rider on different horses and was campaigning for one of the three places on Spain’s team at the Olympics in Tokyo that are scheduled for the summer of 2021 after being delayed for a year by the coronavirus pandemic.
He has lived in Madrid for the past two years pursuing his riding career and attending university.
For the past 10 months, he has been on a hectic schedule, competing throughout Western Europe and the Middle East before returning to Wellington this winter to clinch a start at the World Cup Final that was to be staged in Las Vegas a month ago but was canceled because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In addition to his competition schedule, the popular rider traveled extensively to perform riding clinics that provided much of the income he lost when Yeguada de Ymas ended their sponsorship after six years when he moved to Spain from the United States.
