Zanardi was 10mins away from death

CART's medical squad, led by Dr Steve Olvey and Dr Terry Trammell, knew they faced a race against time when they saw the extent of Zanardi's injuries. He had lost both legs after being hit by Alex Tagliani's car at 190mph.

"Both femoral arteries were ruptured and Alex was bleeding profusely," Olvey told ESPN.com. "He was in big trouble. Terry had the bleeding stopped, but Alex had lost 70 percent of the blood in his body and was still bleeding internally.

"He had four or five pelvic fractures, which causes bleeding, and a blood build up around his liver. You can bleed to death internally, especially in Alex's situation," he added.

Zanardi was airlifted to a world-famous trauma hospital in Berlin, a 25-minute flight. Trammell says Zanardi only had a 50/50 chance of getting there alive and, when they did arrive, the emergency doctors said just how close he came to death.

"The ICU doctors told us that in another 10-15 minutes, they wouldn't have had a chance to save him," added Olvey.

Zanardi continues to make great progress in his battle to recover. He has been brought out of his induced coma, which reduces the chance of organ failure, a reaction to the massive loss of tissue and muscle following his amputation, and has begun talking even though he remains heavily sedated.

"Everything is going the way we want," said Dr Walter Schaffartzik, who had led the team of doctors in Berlin. "He's stable. We found nothing bad at all. It doesn't look as if we should expect something serious."

Doctors at the Unfallkrankenhaus Berlin will check his wounds once more on Friday and will then evaluate him for prosthetics.