As resilient as ever, UFC veteran Fabio Maldonado has found the time to finally talk about the mysterious accident that left him bleeding with a massive gash in his right hand, as he waited to be rushed to surgery last week. What happened, as he explained to Combate, was that he fell down a flight of stairs in his house, and then crashed through a glass door in a freak chain of events.

"I tore my whole wrist, the glass cut my artery and a bit of nerve, too,” Maldonado said. “It's a big stairway and I was almost at the end of it, going down, carrying some groceries and heading to the gym. I put my hand in front of me so I wouldn't hit the glass with my face and it just shattered completely. Luckily I was less than a kilometer away from the hospital. I spent a lot of money, because it's a private hospital, but health comes first."

As Maldonado recalled the accident, he remembered fearing losing control of his hand afterwards and ending his career abruptly.

"I was watching the blood, but I didn't panic,” Maldonado said. “It didn't get to me. I'm calm. Sometimes, panicking just gets in your way. It's the same when you're fighting. In 2004, a guy tried to kill me after I was leaving a night club. He shot five times at point blank, but God put his hand in front of the barrel. One of the bullets flew only inches from my face and the other bullets didn't hit me. I saw the gun and when he prepared to shoot, I just ran. This time around, I kept thinking about my career. I was laying in bed thinking 'I hope I don't lose any motion in my right hand. In jiu-jitsu and wrestling, grip is everything. Before anything, you need to have healthy hands. I need my hands to fight. Especially me, who has only boxing and some grappling. If I lose motion in my hand, I'm f—ked. I'll look for the best physiotherapist out there and try to make up for the time I'm losing."

Most recently, Fabio Maldonado stopped a four-fight losing stint when he defeated Abdl-Khamid-Davlyatov by TKO at EFN 60. The UFC released him in late 2015 after a loss to Corey Anderson.