Ludumo Lamati remains in a hospital in Belfast after suffering a brain bleed during his loss to Nick Ball on Saturday night.

Promoter Frank Warren informed IFL TV during an interview posted to its YouTube channel Friday that Lamati has been in a medically induced coma since he underwent emergency surgery. The featherweight from South Africa was still standing when his trainer threw in the towel during the 12th round, but he collapsed in his corner and was taken from the ring on a stretcher following his technical-knockout loss to England’s Ball.

“It was a dreadful situation,” said Warren, whose company, Queensberry Promotions, co-promoted the card on which Lamati sustained his brain injury. “He had a bleed to his brain. He had an operation. The doctors, surgeon, they put him into a drug-induced coma so they can keep him still, which they do with most people who have head injuries, irrespective of whether it’s boxing, car accidents or rugby. He’s apparently very stable.

“We got a couple people on the ground over there who are monitoring the situation in Belfast for him. His team flew home. We at Queensberry have reached out to get his family over here, or get some of his family over here, so that they can be at his bedside, when hopefully he is taken out of the coma. … We’re all hoping and praying that he’ll pull through this and shows the tremendous fighting spirit he had on Saturday night against Nick.”

Johannesburg’s Lamati, 31, is a former IBO super bantamweight champion. He was unbeaten before Ball stopped him in the 12th round of a bout Ball was well on his way to winning on points prior to the stoppage at 2:15 of the final round at The SSE Arena in Belfast.

An ambulance immediately transported Lamati to a nearby hospital. That caused a delay to the start of the main event, IBF featherweight champion Luis Alberto Lopez’s fifth-round knockout of Belfast’s Michael Conlan, because there was not an ambulance on site.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for krikya360.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.