Injured in crash that killed friend, F2 racer finds purpose in driving
MIAMI - As Formula 1 races start up in Miami Gardens, we are highlighting a local racer, in F2, who has dreams of one day being on the F1 track.
Juan Manuel Correa, known as JM, is a well-known name for many reasons, mostly his recovery story after a terrible accident in 2019.
It's coming up on four years since the accident that took the life of JM's friend, 22-year-old Anthoine Hubert.
Remembering the crash for JM brought back painful images.
"You kind of feel like you're in a, in a really bad nightmare, and you want to wake up from it," said JM Correa.
Correa found out the next day in the hospital that the other driver involved in the crash had died.
"It was shocking, quite traumatic. I must say things like this technically could happen, but you're like, yeah, it's never going to happen to me. Right?"
JM Grew up in Miami after moving from Ecuador and the moment he got in a race car, he knew it was what he was meant to do. He still has the first helmet…and every helmet, he's ever worn.
"My first helmet ever, when I started racing when I was 7 years old…when I was growing up in Miami, I won a national championship and I think I'm still the only American driver to have ever done it."
His parents and biggest supporters created a beautiful room with all of his memorabilia from the trophies to the race suits he wore.
Some memories are more painful to remember as he still has the suit that he wore the day of the accident.
"This is the one from the accident in Formula 2. You can actually see the blood from, from the legs. So pretty, a little bit grim."
The accident changed him.
But, one thing that didn't change was his passion for the sport. Even after many thought he wouldn't walk again, let alone race.
"You go from living this crazy life, traveling the world to the next day. You're in a hospital bed, not knowing if you're going to walk again."
His road to recovery is unlike any story you've ever heard. He spent 2.5 months in the hospital trying to survive the 20 fractures in his legs and feet, a broken back two weeks in an induced coma after his lungs collapsed.
"The pain was terrible, I just couldn't picture in my head how that leg would be able to stand up like I'm standing up right now."
He had more than 25 surgeries and once he knew he wanted to race again, he did everything he could to avoid what the doctor was recommending.
"They were like, look, we think you should amputate your leg. I kind of said no, what, what give me any other option!"
It took total reconstruction of his leg. Throughout the process, he was faced with more challenges than just immense physical pain.
"I was going to bed depressed. Like, how am I even going to do this?"
The physical recovery took around two years.
But, that was nothing compared to what was going on inside of his head.
"I think most of my days were bad days. Yeah, I had a period where I was also so heavily medicated on opioids for the pain that I got extremely depressed and it got so bad that at one point I just quit the opioids. And I decided I'd rather have the pain than, than the, the side effects from, from the pills."
A lot of questions he had, he couldn't answer himself initially.
"It's a bit of like, almost like guilt. Like why did I make it? And he didn't"
He started going to therapy and says it came with a lot of tears and days he didn't think he'd go back, but he did.
We asked him, "What was harder for you to overcome like the mental pain or the physical pain?"
"The mental pain is way worse, to be honest," he said.
It just, it gets so bad that the physical pain doesn't even matter."
Day by day, he would stretch his leg with a machine. Something he now keeps in a case as a reminder of all that he went through to get here and stand here today.
"The doctor will tell me you have to do three hours of rehab per week. I was doing three hours per day."
He ended up doing the unthinkable he started racing again in Formula 3.
"I remember the first time I sat back in a race car and I drove, I was like, wow, I can't, I can't believe I'm doing this right now."
"Very emotional, Yeah. It was, it was surreal. Like, I think I've never felt so proud of myself as I did there."
This season is his first year back in Formula 2, where it all happened.
There are nerves and excitement, but mostly a lot of pride and determination to make it to the ultimate goal of representing America as a Formula 1 driver.
"It would be the realization of a dream being where I think I belong to be."
And when times get tough, he knows that this is what his friend Antoine Hubert would want for him.
"I found a little bit of, of a purpose in the fact that, OK, I think this is what he would have wanted for me, if the roles would have been reversed, I would have wanted him to get back to racing and kind of carry the torch for, for both of us."
