Loek Hartog recounts pulling Ollie Millroy from burning car in Shanghai crash
Last month in Shanghai, Dutch GT driver Loek Hartog rescued fellow racer Ollie Millroy from a burning car after a crash at the China GT, an incident that left Millroy with multiple serious injuries. Hartog has described the rescue, the aftermath and his calls for improved safety in motorsport.
It was early morning in Amsterdam when Hartog, 24, talked about the episode near Vondelpark; he said he will soon fly back to Shanghai for the next round of the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup and will race on the same track and in the same type of car involved in the crash. Millroy, a 36-year-old Briton, sustained six broken ribs, a damaged lung, a splintered collarbone, a broken hand and a fractured C6 neck vertebrae. Hartog resisted the heroic label, saying: “I’m no special guy. We can all do this.”
Hartog described seeing Millroy’s Ferrari engulfed by flames while driving at “around 270km/h” down a straight and estimated the fire was “twice my height.” He attempted to open the driver’s door, ran to the other side of the car, ripped the doors off and, after taking a fire extinguisher from a marshal who was not wearing flame-proof clothing, doused the worst of the fire before pulling Millroy free after two attempts; the extraction took just over a minute. He said: “Ollie was confused and not aware he was in a car in flames. It was like he was knocked out in a boxing match and not able to breathe. He kept repeating: ‘Where am I? What happened? I think I broke my back.’”
Hartog recounted the scene of medical response, saying a marshal appeared after 47 seconds and that medical assistance took more than four minutes to arrive. He shared the criticism voiced by Betty Chen, Millroy’s Ferrari teammate, who wrote: “The measures taken by the organisers following today’s incident, particularly the lack of an immediate and adequate emergency response, are something we cannot accept. The safety of drivers and team members must always come before anything else. What happened today and the way the situation was handled is truly unacceptable.” Hartog said: “Absolutely. First of all, an incident like this should never happen. And, secondly, there should be no driver that needs to stop to help in a case like this.”
Hartog described his own emotions after the rescue: he visited Millroy in hospital that night, showed him footage on his phone and heard Millroy say: “Oh my God, nobody told me it was this bad. Oh my God, is that me?” Hartog reflected that being further back in the race put him in position to respond and said he felt both overwhelmed and grateful when Millroy and his wife, Fern, surprised him in Amsterdam on his birthday on 5 October with a watch “because I gave them more time.” He also recalled a moment of self-questioning at the track: “I was like: ‘I need to stop [racing].’ … then you think of all that [racing] means to you. So [his doubts] very quickly turned into: ‘When can I go out back again?’”
Millroy spoke by Zoom from Dubai about the pain and recovery, saying: “I was hoping to be in better shape six weeks on, but I’m really struggling. I’m in a lot of pain. It’s really hard and I’m getting frustrated. The meds gave me a false sense of security because the team are testing at Sebring [in Florida] in four weeks and I’d thought I might be all right for that. But since I’ve come off the painkillers, I can’t even imagine getting anywhere near a racing car. I can’t even get in a road car at the moment, it’s that sore.” Hartog responded: “It’s pretty insane what your body has been trying to heal the last six weeks.”
The crash has also prompted discussion of safety and a shared objective between the two drivers. Millroy said: “We want to try to save more lives by pushing for better safety,” adding that the accident had been “a wake-up call for a lot of organisers, a lot of circuits.” Millroy’s son Mylo has already taken to karting; Mylo finished third and was awarded the top novice prize at the UAE International, a detail Millroy highlighted when talking about family life amid his recovery.
This weekend Hartog will return to Shanghai to race in the next round of the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup on the same circuit where the accident occurred, while Millroy will watch the action on television as he continues his recovery.