Liam McCracken to fight for UFC contract in Las Vegas after being dragged 60ft under a bus

Liam McCracken will fight Mexican lightweight Silvestre Sanchez on Tuesday in Las Vegas for a UFC contract on Dana White's Contender Series. Three years earlier the 25-year-old from Liverpool was fighting for his life after being struck while out running near his home.

McCracken stepped into the road without properly checking for traffic, did not see the bus until the last moment and was dragged underneath it for 18 metres (60ft) and seven seconds before it stopped. A couple who witnessed the incident found him under the vehicle unconscious and bleeding heavily and thought he was dead; McCracken says that if not for passersby, including a paramedic with life-saving equipment in their car, he would probably have bled to death before an ambulance arrived. The accident left him with four fractures in his back, two slipped discs in his neck, three broken ribs, a broken pelvis, a broken nose, a ruptured anterior cruciate knee ligament, a torn meniscus and multiple other wounds.

"For the first few days I wasn't caring about anything else other than the fact that I was alive," McCracken tells BBC Sport. "I have a little daughter and apparently the people who found me said that was the first thing I kept speaking about when I regained consciousness. I kept asking about my little girl while I was on the floor getting seen by people. The main thing was I was glad to be alive." He added with wry humour that his daughter had just turned one and began walking a day or two after the accident: "My girl had just turned one. One of the funniest things is she wasn't walking at the time and literally a day or two after it happened she started walking. I stopped being able to walk while she'd just learned to walk," says McCracken.

McCracken says he was not only unconscious but being burned by the engine of the bus, and that the driver could not turn the ignition off because the suspension would have dropped, potentially crushing him; a pedestrian helped the driver guide the bus away. "A woman was with me holding my hand on the floor and then loads of people started coming over," said McCracken. "They came over and saw to me straight away which basically saved my life because I was losing a lot of blood. I had to get multiple blood transfusions."

At the time of the accident McCracken had won five of his six professional fights and was being touted as a future UFC star, but his recovery and rehabilitation lasted almost two years. There were serious doubts over whether he would fight again after doctors said he might need a metal rod in his back, which would have ended his career, but multiple X-rays determined he would not need it. "It was a long road and very up and down and if things along the way went a little different, I wouldn't be back fighting," he said. "It was the longest six months of my life and I finally started to get somewhere when I had to have knee surgery, which is a massive surgery. So I had to basically start all over again. That was one of the hardest parts."

McCracken returned to action almost two years after the accident and won via a rear-naked choke against Brazil's Jhon Bryan on his comeback. He said that performance "was not up to his usual standard because he was not fully focused on his opponent" and described the experience: "It was like I was in a film. I was looking around thinking 'how is this happening'?" said McCracken. "I didn't ever think it was going to happen. It felt like I was having an out of body experience." He later delivered a knockout during his latest fight.

McCracken says the accident has "made him a lot more grateful for life" and that the phrase "you could get hit by a bus tomorrow" has taken on new meaning. "When it actually happens to you it's real. I could go from this interview now and cross the road and my life could be over, so it makes you much more grateful," said McCracken. "You're grateful for just being able to walk because I know what it's like to have your dignity stripped from you." He began MMA as a hobby as a youngster but, with two children now, views the sport as a route to provide "financial freedom" and to give his family a life that he "wouldn't be able to do working a normal job"; a statement win on the Contender Series would be a large step toward that goal and complete a remarkable recovery.

McCracken said he feels mentally prepared for the fight: "I feel really good and after everything I've been through I feel like I'm ready, mentally, for anything in life," he said. "The fight doesn't feel too big. I feel like I would have had impostor syndrome a couple of years ago, whereas now it feels right and I'm ready for it."