Marc Bartra has said that he was so glad to be alive after the Borussia Dortmund bus attack that he "did not care" if his arm would have had to be amputated.
The 26-year-old sustained serious injuries to his arm after the coach was targeted by bombs on April 11 as the team travelled to the Signal Iduna Park for the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final against AS Monaco.
The former Barcelona defender, however, recovered and managed to play again for Dortmund by the end of the Bundesliga season, and was part of the squad that won the DFB-Pokal final at the weekend.
"When I was in the ambulance, I did not care if they cut off my arm, I was just glad to be alive," the defender told Spanish channel Antena 3 of his ordeal.
"I had a lot of pain in my arm, and when the doctor told me after the operation that I could play in a month, it was incredible, I was lucky that it was a clean fracture that did not affect the tendons and ligaments.
"My hand was hanging, I could not move it. I screamed in pain and fear, we did not know whether to move or not, if more [blasts] would come. The physio came and I wanted to sleep, I did not feel well because of the pain, how bad it was. The physio gave me a few slaps, said 'do not fall asleep Marc'.
"I spoke and I realized that I could not sleep, that if you fall asleep do not wake up. I started thinking about my daughter, calming myself down, with my eyes open. The ambulance came and it was 10 or 15 minutes that lasted forever."
German prosecutors confirmed that a 28-year-old market trader with dual German-Russian citizenship was detained several days after the attack and charged with attempted murder, causing an explosion and aggravated battery and severe bodily harm.
Giuseppe Labellarte
