MICHAEL Schumacher looked down at the young Australian and saw blood coming from his eyes, nose, ears and mouth.

There was little left of the Aussie's Formula One car - the wing, floor, engine and gearbox had broken off before he hit the wall at 306km/h.



By the time the car had bounced back and stopped about 80m away from the wall, all that was left were a few pieces of carbon fibre wrapped around a body that refused to move.



"I just remember someone yelling at me," would-be V8 Supercar champion James Courtney recalled. "I looked up and it was Michael Schumacher."



The man regarded as the best Formula One driver in history, a legend in every language, pulled Courtney from a potentially deadly situation in Monza, Italy.



As fuel cells threatened to mix with smouldering metal and rubber, the German reached out and offered his hand. "It was pretty surreal having a five-time champion there," Courtney said.



"Anything could have happened because it was the biggest crash in Formula One that year.



"There was a chance of a fire.



"The fuel cells have foam around them but anything can happen."



Schumacher approached the wreck with his heart in his mouth.



Officials banned photographers from the scene, fearing the worst.



"It's a miracle that I survived," Courtney said. "I went straight into the wall at 306km/h and I got sent backwards at about 70km/h.



"They told me I was lucky my retinas did not detach because of the force of the crash.



"The track was closed because there were bits of car everywhere.



"It looked like a plane crash.



"Everyone had to stop but Schumacher made it on to the scene. He was the first there. He tried to make sure everything was OK."



Courtney was a star in the making. A whiz kid from Penrith who had been picked up by an Italian scout when he was just 15 and taken to Europe.



He was beating Jensen Button and Lewis Hamilton, conquering all before him and destined to win a Formula One seat the following year. That was until all hell broke loose at 10.14am on the July 2, 2002.



"I was doing 330km/h in top gear and I got on the brake," Courtney said. "The rear suspension failed and it pulled the rear wishbone out of the gearbox.



"A wheel was off the ground and I hit the wall."



The force of the impact knocked Courtney out. As he came to, he had no idea what had happened. But panic set in when he tried to move.



"I was paralysed on the right side of my body and I was freaking out," Courtney said.



"Officials were talking to me in Italian, so Schumacher was the only one I could get any sense from."



Courtney stared death in the face.



For 10 terrifying seconds he was in a place that is the stuff of horror films.



The crash cost Courtney his Formula One dream. He was laid up for a year. "I crashed at 67 Gs of force. It took me a year to recover. I couldn't walk without getting a migraine. Anything would set it off. Noise. Light. Anything. I walked around for a year in pain," he said.



"If I didn't have that accident I would have won the British Formula Ford championship and that would have given me a seat in that car the next year."



Many would have quit after the horrifying crash.



He had survived this one but what about the next? Demons needed to be slayed. "This [driving] is the only thing I have ever wanted to do and I never thought about quitting," Courtney said. "I got to test again the year after the crash but it cost me a Formula One drive.



"This is the only thing I can do but it did set me back. Mentally it was tough, but it made me stronger."



Fortunately, this is a story with a happy ending.



Had he not crashed, Courtney might today be racing against the likes of Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber. But he might not have his beautiful wife, Carys, and his two children, Zara and Cadel.



"I am much happier with my life now," Courtney said. "Who knows where that path would have taken me? I now live in the best country in the world and have love all around me. I couldn't ask for more."



That's not quite true. There is one thing for which this racer boy longs.



"The V8 championship would mean a lot," Courtney said.



"To win it would be mega."





Originally published as Why Courtney owes life to Schumacher