Image: Octopi Media.

Austin Forkner announced today that he recently underwent a successful brain surgery to remove an arteriovenous malformation (AVM). Forkner had known of the issue but scans following his crash in Arlington revealed that matters had gotten worse, and he then had surgery last Monday to remove the blood vessel cluster.

Forkner says a full recovery is expected but doctors have recommended at least three months before he returns to riding which will rule him out for the rest of the 2024 racing season.

“I essentially had three surgeries last weekend. Two procedures, one surgery,” said Forkner. “The first one was on Friday. They ran a catheter type thing up from my artery in my leg up into my brain. Released some MRI or contrast dye that that type of stuff so that get an exact image of it. They got an exact image of it. Turned out it was good news. There was kind of one main blood vessel feeding the blood to it.

“As far as I was told, great surgery, they released me on Wednesday. They said that was the quickest recovering brain patient that they’ve ever had, that they’ve ever seen, which is good.”

Now that he can begin towards a full recovery, Forkner stated he is excited about racing again in 2025 and will know more about when he can begin fully riding soon. For now, he will take the time to recover on the sidelines.