From life support to the podium.

16th August 2000

Growing up we were always outdoors; I was falling off horses before I could walk, all day adventures on our bikes, out running with the dogs, sailing, hockey, rugby, martial arts, you name it. Never particularly competitive when it came to running, although I did represent the county at 1500m and win a few local races, I was more interested in fitness for a career in the military. But aged 20, while at university studying physiotherapy and at the start of selection for a T.A. Special Forces unit, I was hit by a car on the wrong side of the road on a blind summit. My fitness at the time undoubtedly saved my life, but I still spent five days on life support.

The accident left me with fractures to my left tibia and fibula (lower leg), right femur (thigh), both pubic rami and right ilium (pelvis), a few ribs, my right radius (forearm), and my jaw. I'd ripped all the flesh off my right elbow, smashed my head so hard my inner ear had been stretched and torn (resulting in now reduced hearing), but worst of all my lungs filled up with fluid (A.R.D.S.). Quite simply I was lucky to be alive, but was still only given a 10% chance of survival.

Multiple surgeries across two different hospitals (Princess Margaret in Swindon, and John Radcliffe in Oxford) and I eventually left hospital in a wheelchair. I spent the next six months in a wheelchair before slowly learning to walk again. In the challenge of keeping me alive during the first rounds of surgeries, the importance of achieving perfect alignment of the fractures was not at the top of the list and I was left with shortened and rotated fractures in my legs. I was too sick to surgically fix the pelvis initially and it was two weeks after the accident before I was stable enough to go back and have that operation; by then the pelvis was getting stuck in a twisted and shifted position. The result being that I couldn't ride a bike or run without destroying my hip joint. So 18 months later I went back under the knife again and had the femur re-fractured and fixed again in a better alignment, and started another 18-month journey of rehab. I was told I was still unlikely to be able to run again, but see how I got on; perhaps better to accept a more sedentary life going forward.