For Martin Garcia, it could have been the worst case scenario. He was aboard Steve Wood (Maximus Mischief) in Saturday's second race at Churchill Downs when a horse named Lutkenhaus (Upstart) broke down in front of him and led to a chain reaction with six jockeys going down in the spill. Garcia got the worst of it. A horse stepped on his face, his back and his helmet.Yet, just five days later, he was back in his home in Kentucky, ready to tell his story of survival.“The horse in front of me fell down,” he said. “That horse fell down and then everybody followed him. We just fell down on top of one another. The only thing I remember was that a horse stepped on my back and then stepped on my head and stepped on my face.”His injuries include six broken ribs, four cracked vertebrae and a punctured lung. Garcia was sent to the University of Louisville Hospital, where doctors became concerned about possible head injuries after learning that the jockey had been kicked in the head. Remarkably, he had none, not even a concussion.Martin Garcia's Helmet | courtesy Martin GarciaGarcia said that he had been careful to find the best helmet available to jockeys, one that could best withstand the type of blow to the head that he experienced. That, he said, made all the difference.“That helmet definitely saved my life,” Garcia said. “If somebody asked me about my helmet, I would tell them to buy the best helmet because a lot of them out there just break with anything. You have to know how they are going to react to impact. They'll tell you that they hold up on impact but not all of them do. My helmet, that's what saved me. Not many helmets that I've tried are as strong as the one I have. I've fallen down a bunch of times and I've hit the pavement two times already with this type of helmet. With this helmet, nothing happened.”Garcia said that he believes it wasn't just the helmet, and that divine intervention played a role in his survival. When asked if he felt lucky to be alive, he said: “God is the one who saved me. God is everything. Please mention God. God is everything in this world. I'm not judging. I'm not saying anything against people who don't believe in God. I believe in God and I pray before I ride. I pray all the time. So I think that God and my angels, they're the ones that helped me to be alive.”Garcia is not sure yet when he will return. He said the punctured lung is the worst of his many injuries and that he won't know more before a return visit to a doctor in about two weeks.“They were more worried about my lung,” Garcia said. “They say that with the other bones there's nothing they can do about it except to have an operation. But they said that I don't really need one. Some of my ribs are pretty bad, but with my vertebrae, they just have a crack. They are not completely broken or anything. The doctor told me that he was worried was about my lung. He said to take care of my lung and then come back in 15 days and then they're going to do another MRI or whatever and then we'll go from there.”Garcia said that he is able to walk and, all things considered, is in reasonably good shape. He understands that the possibility of a spill is there anytime he or anyone else climbs aboard a race horse.“I can say only one thing, that this is part of the job,” Garcia said. “I'm glad that no one was seriously hurt. Nothing bad happened except the broken bones, but I can walk. I can't run, but I can do little things. Not crazy things or anything, but at least I can walk. I'm not the type of person who needs to be in bed. I have to do something because when I stay in one place I get more sore. I have to move around a little.”Cristian Torres and Walter Rodriguez were also sent to the local hospital after the spill. Rodriguez had concussion-like symptoms and is expected to be sidelined for about a month. Torres did not suffer any broken bones. Lutkenhaus was humanely euthanized following evaluation by on-track veterinarians. The race was declared a “no contest.”The post After Spill, Martin Garcia Says He Is Lucky To Be Alive appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.