‘I don’t remember anything about the actual crash’ - Ezra Caudell details the injuries that nearly killed him

Ezra Caudell has described the injuries he sustained at the Philadelphia Cycling Classic, after the crash that left him in intensive care on life support.

The Modern Adventure rider was 19 at the time and turned 20 in hospital on 8 September. He has no recollection of the accident.

“I don’t remember anything about the actual crash personally, because I hit my head real good and don’t have much memory of that day entirely. The first memory I have is from a couple weeks after the crash,” Caudell wrote on Instagram.

Caudell was bridging to the breakaway alongside Milan Menten of Lotto Intermarché, halfway through the race on Kelly Drive, when he lost control of his bike.

“We were bridging to the breakaway, and I either hit a manhole cover or a curb looking back to see the peloton, and I lost control hitting a light pole with the left side of my body,” he wrote, relying on Menten’s account.

Menten escaped with whiplash and ligament damage, and said afterwards that he planned to speak to a mental coach having witnessed the crash at close range.

The damage to Caudell’s left lung required a breathing tube fitted in the ambulance, which stayed in until 9 September. Chest tubes on both sides kept his lungs inflated, and he was still unable to oxygenate his blood.

Doctors placed him on ECMO, a machine that draws blood from the femoral artery, oxygenates it and returns it to the body. “Like a lung outside of you,” as he puts it. He was moved from Jefferson Einstein Philadelphia to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital for specialist treatment.

The list runs well beyond the lungs: a Grade 3 diffuse axonal brain injury, paresthesia of the left arm, an orbital facial fracture, a fractured rib, multiple fractures in his neck and a spinal cord injury.

“The lungs took a while to stay up and work on their own, which kept me in the hospital for a while,” he wrote. 

“Moral of the story is poles fight pretty good when you hit em.”

Caudell woke and began communicating 11 days after the crash, and was discharged 31 days after it, moving to Magee Rehabilitation Hospital in Philadelphia to work on day-to-day function and mobility in his left arm. 

He has since left Magee and is in outpatient rehabilitation.

“Thankfully Philadelphia has a great hospital that had the resources I needed for a crash like this,” he wrote. 

“First, I want to say huge thanks to my parents, friends, team, and everyone who’s been supporting me and my family so much while I’m dealing with this.”

Caudell is from Acworth, Georgia, and joined Modern Adventure at the start of 2026 after racing as a junior for Team California.

In his first professional season he took three top tens at the US championships in June, including fourth in the under-23 road race and seventh in the elite road race the following day, and became the youngest rider in the 2026 Paris-Roubaix, finishing 121st.

His parents and sister had moved to Germany to support his career and travelled back at short notice. A GoFundMe set up by a family friend remains open.

He is contracted to Modern Adventure for 2027. Whether he returns to racing is not yet known.