Maradona slightly hurt in traffic accident

July 12, 2011 | 08:32

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Argentine football icon Diego Maradona was slightly hurt Monday when the car he was driving collided with a bus on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, media and hospital sources said.

World Cup winner Maradona, 50, was driving near his home near his home suburb of Ezeiza when the accident happened, a source said at Ezeiza hospital.

Local television said Maradona, who coached Argentina at last summer's World Cup finals and who earlier this year agreed to coach United Arab Emirates side al Wasl, was travelling with his partner, Veronica Ojeda, who was said to have suffered a bruised rib.

"It is nothing serious," said Maradona's doctor Alfredo Cahe, his prognosis swiftly confirmed by hospital director Oscar Sico.

"Maradona is fine, he suffered virtually no whiplash. They (he and Ojeda) were taken hospital as a precaution but have no problems. They can both go home."

Last week, Maradona was in hospital again but on that occasion as a visitor as he went to see his frail mother Dalma Franco, who is on a ventilator in a Buenos Aires sanitorium after suffering in recent days from a virus.

She also has a history of heart problems, which necessitated a spell in hospital late last year.

AFP

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