Jacob Darmanin looked back and wondered what was taking the rest of the runners so long to reach their destination. Little did he know that one of the athletes – well-known doctor Victor Calvagna – was on the ground fighting for his life after he was run over by a car.

“We all set off together, but the younger ones, including myself, ran faster and reached the Coast Road before Dr Calvagna and his group,” Darmanin, an 18-year-old athlete and aspiring doctor told Times of Malta.

Jacob Darmanin

Calvagna, a paediatric cancer doctor who became a household name as president of children’s charity Puttinu Cares, was hit by a car as he was jogging in Qawra.

The accident caused him to lose almost all of his brain function, his family said.

The run was a routine session that the athletes frequently do as part of their training.

That night, Darmanin, Calvagna and about two dozen other athletes were scheduled to run 10 kilometres – from Qawra to the Coast Road – and then back to Qawra.

Darmanin recalled how upon their arrival at the finish line, his group continued with other training exercises, while the other groups gradually returned and joined them, but the 63-year-old doctor failed to return.

“All groups returned, except for Dr Calvagna’s group. We all looked at each other and wondered what was taking them so long,” Darmanin said.

“Then one of us said, ‘I hope nothing bad happened’.”

He had barely finished his sentence when their coach received a phone call informing him of the horrific accident.

“We rushed to the scene of the accident and stood there in shock and disbelief. I find it hard to believe, even now.”

An inspirational figure

Calvagna was Darmanin’s doctor as a child and he says it was thanks to the cancer doctor that he became an athlete.

“I suffered from asthma attacks and my mother used to take me to him,” he said.

“One day, during a check-up he told me, ‘you have a triathlete’s body. You should train’.

“And that’s how it started. I joined their team.”

Darmanin said Calvagna also inspired him to study medicine.

“As a child I used to feel that every time I went to Dr Calvagna he healed me, and that feeling built in me an emotional bond with him and his profession.

I know it was just asthma, but the bond was real,” he said.

“I, too, wanted to make people feel the way he made me feel, and that’s why I’m aspiring to be a doctor now.”