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Initially, doctors feared Morrison would require surgery, but his symptoms improved upon transfer from the local hospital to the Intermountain Medical Center. As of Sunday afternoon, he was not taking blood thinners.

The timing on a return to Canada is unknown.

“The doctor suggested that I recovered quickly because I am a very healthy young person,” Morrison said in a statement provided by Speed Skating Canada. “I would like to thank everyone for their messages of support, and especially Josie who is with me and who was able to recognize the signs quickly.”

On Saturday night, Morrison’s Facebook page showed a picture of him eating an ice cream treat in his hospital bed, with Spence by his side and cardiac monitoring stickers on his chest.

“Denny understands this is serious, but he’s in good spirits,” Russell Reimer, his agent, said. “I told him he should rebrand as Survivor Man, because he’s always on the right side of these brushes with death.”

Morrison broke his femur, punctured his lung, ruptured his kidneys and bruised his heart last May 7 when his motorcycle crashed into a left-turning car. He also suffered a concussion, tore a knee ligament and chipped his spine. The impact of the collision knocked the car over on its side, and a police officer on scene wondered out loud how the motorcyclist could have possibly survived.

After a gruelling recovery, he officially returned to racing in March at the Oval Finale in Calgary.

Known for his dry wit, Morrison kept the one-liners coming Sunday — sarcastically pointing to Speed Skating Canada’s mandatory athlete fee and the International Skating Union’s exoneration of Russia skaters Semion Elistratov and Pavel Kulizhnikov after short-lived doping bans for the heart drug meldonium – as reasons for this latest medical crisis.

Morrison tweeted: “ISU retracted the suspension of doping athletes. SSC imposed an athlete fee. It’s enough to give me a friggin stroke.”