Alexander Volkanovski Says He Could've Lost His Leg with Blood Infection

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Update: Alex’s condition is stable, he is responding well to the treatment. ‬ ‪As a precaution, he will remain under supervision at the hospital and will be re-assessed in 48hrs to ensure the infection is completely under control before given any clearance to travel home. Thank you to everyone for all the messages of support

A post shared by Rhys Dal Cin (@heyitsrhyso) on May 15, 2019 at 5:21pm PDT

Alexander Volkanovski had a crazy week, to say the least.

After he beat Jose Aldo by unanimous decision at UFC 237, it was then announced Frankie Edgar was getting the next featherweight title shot. To make matters worse, on his plane ride back home, Volkanovski's team noticed his foot was swollen. He was then admitted to a hospital in Chile.

"I guess it was too hard to tell because I was injured because of the trauma from the kicks, and that sort of threw me off," Volkanovski said to ESPN. "But once I went on the plane it went crazy and obviously I just started feeling really crook [sick]. Then I went on the next flight and that's when it really hit me; I had 40+ degree [Celsius] temperatures, it was nasty stuff. I was delirious by then and didn't really know what was going on, but I was like 'get me a doctor, I need a doctor.' So they did that and, yeah, it was pretty serious, the antibiotics didn't work straight away; we were really worried about it hitting my tendons and bones because it was very close, once it does that you can have problems."

Luckily for Volkanovski, his plane stopped in Chile. He says if it didn't, he 'would have had to tell them we've got to turn this flight around.'

And, by going to the hospital he saved his leg from being amputated.

"I could have lost the leg, lose your life. That stuff's very, very serious, but it didn't get to that stage. We got it just at the right time; we left it too long where it rocked me so much, but we got in just in time for it not to do serious damage."