Chapter 1:  Awakening

The first thing I remember after coming round in Salford Royal Hospital was the fundraising party that had been held sometime earlier.  It was unbelievable.  The event was taking place in a grand ballroom inside a high class hotel.  All my family and friends were there and I was seated right in the middle of the room.  I couldn’t move from my seat, or move my arms, but I suppose that was natural given what had happened to me.  At least I wasn’t in any pain.  My best friend Rick, his wife Wendy and lots of their family (some of whom I didn’t even know) were all seated on a raised area to my right.  The newest addition to their family, Rick’s granddaughter Faye, was lying in the most expensive looking, old fashioned pram and she was almost lifted up by the number of balloons tied to the handles.  My mate Rick has been incredible ever since he heard about my accident.  He was there to support my wife Linda immediately and he just couldn’t have done more to help us.  It was obviously he that had arranged this fundraiser.

To my left was a huge window covered by a voile curtain, but through it I could still see my two daughters Vicky and Kirsty standing outside on the large balcony.  Kirsty was heavily pregnant, and was being cuddled by her husband Will.  But there was no sign of her first son, Charles.  Perhaps it was a bit late for him to be up.

Beyond the balcony, I could also see some large streetlamps and a few soldiers dotted about in case of trouble.  To be honest, although I knew we were somewhere in Eastern Europe, I wasn’t sure exactly which country we were in.  All I knew was that it had just gone through a revolution and in the distance we could hear fireworks and the occasional gunshot being fired in celebration.  I had been reassured it was safe to be there and I think the reason I had been hospitalised there was that this is where my bike had been manufactured.  For whatever reason, that made sense to me at the time.

As the event got underway it became clear that the crowds outside were bidding to win something.  It was probably a prize put up by Rick – he’s a very wealthy man and incredibly generous.  Every time a bid from outside got close to winning, Rick would jump, run over and shove in a bid of his own to keep the auction going.  I remember at one point seeing on the ‘totaliser’ in front of me that the amount bid was close to £100,000!

Directly in front of me, my wife Linda was in a room having some photos taken with her idol, Paul Weller.  I wasn’t surprised at this.  Rick had obviously used his contacts at Glastonbury to get him there.  I don’t know why I felt jealous but I remember glaring at Weller and he, in turn .looked across at me and wiggled his little finger to indicate that he wasn’t a threat as he had a very small penis.  Eventually Linda emerged with a fabulous enlarged photo of the two of them together as a keepsake.

It was at this point that Will.i.am disappeared – and good riddance to him.  For most of the evening he had been living inside a drinks dispenser on the table to my left and pissing me off by refusing to give me a drink.  He just stared at me down a tube that should have been dispensing Ribena.  Now he had gone I could finally get a drink… but for whatever reason I couldn’t move.  My thirst was unbearable.

*****

1. By now you are probably thinking these are the ramblings of a nutcase. And of course, I have finally come to accept that none of the above actually happened.  But when I first became conscious I was totally convinced that this event did happen, just as I have described it.  And for quite a while, I argued till I was blue in the face that it was all real.

You see, I had been in what we hear called a ‘drug induced coma’ for about two weeks following my accident.  The doctors do this to protect your brain and body from further damage whilst they assess the true state of your injuries and what they can do to help you.  (Can you imagine the difficulty in trying to fit all kinds of wires and tubes to someone whilst their arms are flailing about?)  The drug induced coma takes you way beyond just being anaesthetised.  It sedates you so deeply that you can be kept in this state for days or weeks.  (In Michael Schumacher’s case, you might recall, for several months).  My injuries were such that I needed to be put in a coma whilst they tried to keep me alive and figure out what they could do to help me.  I was on a ventilator that managed my breathing and a machine that kept my kidneys working while all my functions essentially shut down.  I found out later (by getting access to my medical notes and talking to my consultants) that they didn’t really expect me to survive.  That was a bit of a shocker!

Having researched it, I now understand that it is quite normal to have hallucinations whilst deeply sedated.  These hallucinations are not dreams – they are much more vivid and real.  Often triggered by sounds around you, the noises, sights and smells seem so real and you can describe every precise detail of what you experienced.  Hence my absolute belief that the fundraiser actually happened.  And you know what?  Despite everyone’s denials, there’s a little bit of me that is still expecting Rick to present me with a cheque!

Some people have really bad hallucinations.  A friend of mine who was also in an induced coma for a few days could see spiders coming out of the walls and in his mind he had to wave his arms about to fend them off, but they just kept coming.  In most cases, all the action takes place around you and whilst you want to get involved by moving around, you can’t.  So, given the detail in a hallucination this must have been seriously frightening!  Not unlike the ‘trips’ caused by drugs such as LSD, hallucinations can be good or bad – the common aspect though is their vivid reality.  I was lucky in that none of my hallucinations was really unpleasant – although they were all very weird, as you will see as we go through this book.

Now, as I came round I was very confused.  I immediately remembered what had happened to me, but naturally thought I was waking up on the day after my accident.  Linda tried to explain that it was in fact two weeks later and that she had been sat at my bedside every day, just watching me – not knowing whether I would live or die.  And of course also wondering what state I would be in if I did wake up – in other words, would I be a ‘vegetable’ as the expression goes.  I couldn’t take any of this in.  I knew I was injured because I was in considerable discomfort, but I thought I would be out of hospital in a few days.  I had absolutely no idea how serious my condition was despite the fact that I was still wired up to goodness knows how many machines.

Later, when I was able to think more clearly, I tried hard to imagine what Linda and the girls went through during that first two weeks – but I simply couldn’t.  Kirsty had Charles to look after so she could only stay at my side for one night, but Linda and Vicky literally lived in the hospital.  They were allowed to stay in a small apartment in Manchester Royal Infirmary, which is where I was taken at first.  Then, when I was transferred to Salford after 6 days, they had a similar arrangement.  This meant that they could spend virtually every waking moment just sitting with me, talking to me and trying to see signs of my coming round – which of course was difficult as I was deliberately being kept under for my own safety.  Apparently, the doctors did try to bring me out of the coma after a few days in Manchester but when I started showing signs of distress and flailing my arms about, they put me straight back under.  I will never understand what this did to Linda’s emotions.  And I know that Vicky struggled for months afterwards as she just kept seeing me in this state whenever she closed her eyes.

*****

Now the druggy mists were clearing I could begin to appreciate the reality of my condition.  I had a tube up my nose that went straight into my stomach through which I was fed a something that looked like liquid banana (monkey milk as I called it).  There were several drips on stands around me all feeding painkillers and fluids into me through various tubes sticking out of my arms and neck.

I also had a tracheostomy.  This is a surgical procedure to create an opening in the neck at the front of the windpipe (trachea).  A tube is inserted into the opening and connected to an oxygen supply and ventilator to assist with your breathing.  It also allows fluid that has built up in the throat and windpipe to be removed by means of a vacuum inserted through the hole in your neck.  This was a horrible procedure that in my case needed to be carried out many times each day.  A chest infection (which could easily have seen me off given the state I was in) meant that I had a lot of mucous in my windpipe that I could not clear by coughing because I was too weak.  The relief after having ‘suction’ as it was called was tremendous, but the mucous would return almost immediately and the process had to be repeated.  I should perhaps point out that during this phase of my recovery in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) I had one to one care.  A nurse was stationed in my room watching me literally 24 hours a day.  If he or she wanted to leave the room, someone else had to take over.  Even this did not dissuade me from the idea that I would be home within a few days – the drugs again.

Inside the ‘Trachy’ there is a balloon which is inflated to stop any fluid going down your throat.  Unfortunately, this also blocks off your vocal chords so that you cannot speak.  To help me communicate, I was given a board with a few common words and all the letters of the alphabet on it that I could point to in order to get across what I wanted to say.  Unfortunately, two things got in the way of this.  Firstly, I have always had good eye sight for reading, but now I found that my short sight was blurred.  The second thing was that for quite a while after I regained consciousness I was still utterly and completely off my tits on morphine and goodness knows what else!  When Rick first visited I remember him asking me some questions but the answers I gave using the letter board made no sense whatsoever!  It was like I was using a Ouija board and some badly dyslexic spirit was coming through!

“How are you feeling mate?”

“Gnnnstyjdhytvgds.”  was my considered reply.

 

After a while, although still drugged up to my eyeballs, I was allowed to have the Trachy balloon deflated for just a few minutes so I could try to speak.  This didn’t work too well in that I was just too weak most of the time to make much conversation… but I could say a few words and that felt good. Apparently, the first thing I said was, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”  Hardly a cohesive sentence but enough to convince Linda and the girls that I was myself!  On another occasion, Linda referred to my impressive (for me) moustache as I obviously hadn’t been shaved for a while.  I apparently thought this meant I was Freddy Mercury and tried to sing the chorus of ‘Barcelona!’ (Freddy Mercury and Montserrat Caballe).

In terms of my injuries, I had little idea how serious they were.  I couldn’t move my legs of course but the fact that I was in Intensive Care and I had almost died just didn’t register.  Of course, a year on I now understand everything about the damage done to my body.  According to my notes, when I was admitted to hospital I had:

Stable cervical fracture  (the cervical spine is essentially the neck)

Multiple thoracic spine fractures  (3 to be precise – the main one being at T9/10 vertebrae or about level with the belly button – this resulted in a complete break in the spinal cord)

Fractured left clavicle  (collar bone)

Fractures to both scapulas  (shoulder blades – the left one was in several pieces apparently)

Multiple bilateral rib fractures  (many of my ribs were broken in more than one place)

Aortic tear  (the aorta is the body’s main artery which, if torn results in rapid blood loss.  This was the main life threatening injury I had and, on its own was enough to do me in.  I had a stent put into this artery as soon as I was admitted to hospital)

Bilateral haemopneumothorax  (Haemopneumothorax is a medical term describing the combination of two conditions: pneumothorax, or air in the chest cavity, and haemothorax  or blood in the chest cavity.  The resulting condition is a serious state wherein respiration is repressed.  The blood and air fill the pleural space, the space between the lung and the chest wall, putting pressure on the lung.  This can cause the lung to collapse and be unable to fill with air (unilateral haemopneumothorax).  In the most serious of cases, both lungs may collapse (bilateral haemopneumothorax).  Death follows if respiration is inhibited enough.

Flail chest  (this occurs when a segment of the rib cage breaks under extreme stress and becomes detached from the rest of the chest wall.  It occurs when multiple adjacent ribs are broken in multiple places, separating a segment, so a part of the chest wall moves independently.  The flail segment moves in the opposite direction as the rest of the chest wall: because of the ambient pressure in comparison to the pressure inside the lungs, it goes in while the rest of the chest is moving out, and vice versa.  This so-called “paradoxical motion” can increase the work and pain involved in breathing. Studies have found that up to half of people with flail chest die.

Surgical emphysema in bilateral chest walls  (no idea, but sounds serious doesn’t it?!  Probably something to do with the last bit)

Wow.  Quite a comprehensive list of injuries.  But at least now I was in hospital so I could only get better from now on, right?  If only that were true…

So, what did I do to rack up such serious injuries?

What exactly happened on that warm, sunny Sunday morning, 4th August 2013?  The day everything changed – forever.

Chapter 2: Ouch!

I think this must be Sri Lanka.  We went there a couple of years ago and had a fantastic time- a mixture of lounging on a beach and exploring the incredible countryside, culture and wildlife.  This landscape definitely looks and feels similar.  The bus I am on is making slow progress as, once you get out of the towns, the roads can be pretty poor.  I’m on the bus because I’ve gone and got myself lost.  The hotel I am staying in is on top of a hill – that much I know, but I can’t remember its name or proper address – so I’m just looking for a bit of this road that looks familiar.

The bus is pretty crowded with locals going about their business – shopping, visiting relatives or going to work.  The crazy thing is that no one seems at all surprised that there’s an elephant on the bus!! 

I don’t seem to be able to move, but I guess I must have because now I am off the bus and walking along the road, still, looking for a familiar landmark that might help me find my hotel.  The air is heavily scented, from the many flowers laid at the little statues of Buddha that seem to be everywhere.  Maybe I’ve got an enhanced sense of smell?  In any event I can see my trunk waving from side to side and sniffing the air as I wander along.  The light is fading now and I’m starting to worry now about how I will get up the hill once I find it as I remember it was very steep.  I need a drink so badly.

*****

Just why I had become an elephant I didn’t know.  We think that a sound might have triggered the hallucination I described at the start of this book as Linda has a Paul Weller track as her iphone ringtone and she remembers it going off whilst she was at my side.  But what turned me into an elephant?  No idea.  But again I can tell you that when I remembered this adventure some time after waking it felt as real as real can be.  I was an Indian elephant… I was on that bus… I was there walking down the dusty road.  Of course, once I became more rational, it wasn’t too difficult to persuade me that maybe this memory was a hallucination!

When I was a kid, I was bike mad and was out on it at every possible opportunity.  I could ride like the wind.  It probably helped that my first proper bike (i.e. not cobbled together from bits fished out of the Rochdale Canal) was a bright orange, girl’s racing bike bought by my mum (from a misleading advert in the Oldham Chronicle) for my birthday.  It’s amazing how fast you can pedal when you are constantly being chased by a gang of bigger kids all calling you a ‘puff’.  Thanks mum.

Bigger and better bikes followed and cycling, together with football filled my every spare hour.  Then as an older teenager I became totally fixated with music and bikes were replaced with guitars.  When I got older still I was in to rock climbing on the great crags in the North of England and then surfing when I moved to Cornwall.  Marriage and then kids came along (only just in the right order!) and this meant total focus the family and my career.  I moved all round the country with the bank (Barclays, Halifax and then Lloyds) and eventually ended up in Halifax… not a million miles from Failsworth, near Oldham where I grew up.  I forgot all about bikes until well into middle age when I decided that I needed to rediscover the joys of cycling and get fit/lose some weight at the same time.  Yes… that’s right… I became what is known as a MAMIL, a Middle Aged Man In Lycra.  And it felt  good.

At the age of 50 I went out and bought a very expensive, lightweight, carbon racing bike and all the essential gear to go with it.  No expense spared.  You will have heard the expression ‘all the gear and no idea’ – well this was almost true in my case.  Not quite though.  They also say ‘you never forget how to ride a bike’ and I took to it quite well, considering.  Considering that is my mild obesity and clumsiness.  My friend Graham McCawley once said that, when dressed in my Lycra I looked like a black condom stuffed with walnuts.  Fair comment I suppose.  However, I did drop some weight though regular outings and I certainly regained some fitness.  Have you seen the hills around Halifax?  Going in any direction from my front door meant lung-busting climbs and hair raising descents.  I loved it.

In summer 2009, Lloyds decided to get rid of me.  Unfairly, as it turned out (because an internal appeal decided so).  This meant I spent ages at home on ‘gardening leave’ while they figured out what to do next to rid themselves of this troublesome employee (whilst avoiding getting embroiled in a messy Employment Tribunal hearing).  I was very hurt by what happened to me and did not know what to do with myself at first.  So, one Tuesday morning that August I decided that it would be a good idea to cycle to Land’s End and raise some money for charity.  Apart from giving me something to do for a week or so, this plan had the additional advantage that I reckoned I could rethink what I was going to do with the rest of my life from then on whilst churning out the miles.  And I would also get to spend a few days seeing my mum who, at the age of 90 was living in sheltered accommodation in Hayle, Cornwall.  Most of my family live down there so it’s always nice to visit.

Now, any sensible person would plan carefully for such a trip.  Really build up the fitness and stamina… get a few long rides under the belt… plan the back up support, etc.  Not me though.  In typical impulsive fashion I decided I was going to set off almost straight away!  I phoned an old colleague who was now the CEO of Countrywide Estate Agents and asked if they would cover my accommodation costs on the way down so I could ensure that any sponsorship money I raised would go to charity.  He readily agreed… so all I had to do was plan my route.  I reckoned a reasonable pace would see me covering about 50 to 60 miles per day, so I got out an old Shell £2.99 UK road atlas to see which towns were along the route.  I then booked a Travelodge or Premier Inn near the end of each day’s route and also phoned a couple of mates to see if they could put me up for the night.  Sorted.

So, on Thursday morning – just two days after having the idea – I packed a rucksack with waterproofs, a change of Lycra and a few t shirts and shorts for evening wear and I was off.  First stop was Rick’s house in Chesterfield.  Unsurprisingly, I got lost a few times as all I had was a few cut outs from the map book showing the start and end point for each day’s journey and the major roads in between.  Of course, I was going to try to avoid major roads so this proved fairly unhelpful. – apart from when I ended up on the A38M near Derby  So, by the time I got there I was knackered and beginning to wonder whether I really wanted to do this for another 8 days.  I was also in some discomfort with back pain caused by carrying a rucksack.  Rick pointed out that maybe I should have used panniers on the bike as this is more usual for long distance cycling.  A quick phone call to a bike shop was needed to sort this problem out. (They laughed in disbelief when I told them I was doing the trip with a rucksack!)

“I’d better have some panniers then please”

“Front or rear wheel?”

“Rear I think”

“What sort of bike is it?”

“A Specialized Roubaix”

“That’s a carbon framed bike.  You can’t fit panniers onto a carbon framed bike”

Shit.

Anyway, on I went and I made it to Land’s End raising £6,500 for Cancer Research UK along the way – and my back just about held up.  The state of my arse is another story, so I’ll save that for another book!  But sufficient to say that I felt good and thought I could manage more of this long distance cycling lark.  I was not going back into full time employment so I kept up my riding and had some good fun cycling around my home in West Yorkshire.  A Coast to Coast trip with Rick followed and we thought about maybe going off on a big bike ride when he gave up work.

*****

Now, let’s leap forward to October 2010 and I am lying in a hospital bed in Clinica Benidorm.  That’s right… the ‘Benidorm ER’ off the telly, although they weren’t filming when I was there.  Whilst spraying a lemon tree at our house in Spain I had managed to fall off a high wall, landing almost head first on a concrete driveway.  Putting my arms out to break the fall only succeeded in breaking both my arms of course and so I was operated on for 7 hours whilst they tried to piece the mess back together with so many metal plates and screws.  After a six night stay in hospital I was able to fly home with both arms in plaster, looking for all the world like a character from ‘Carry On Nurse’.

Now, when you have both arms in plaster there are some things you cannot do for yourself.  (I promised you in the preface that I was not going to hold back on the gory details).  Linda was introduced to that ‘in sickness and in health’ bit of our wedding vows.  She held the pee bottle while I filled it.  She ensured my back end was clean at all times.  She hosed me down like a dog whilst I stood in the bath.  In short, she was a star.  It was quite a long road to recovery as the damage done was severe, especially to my right arm.  I found I couldn’t rotate the arm much and this meant a temporary end to my guitar playing leaving me very grumpy.  I also thought that cycling might be a real problem.  On the other hand I did have a somewhat different outlook on life, recognising that I could very easily have killed myself… or broken my neck.

A couple of minor ops followed to repair tendons and to take out a screw that was threatening to stick into my wrist joint.  Then, after a year, the repairs to my right elbow just collapsed.  X rays showed screws pointing in all different directions and my consultant at Bradford Royal Infirmary advised me there was no way of piecing the jigsaw of bone fragments back together.  His recommendation was a radial head replacement i.e. cutting the end of the bone off and inserting a carbon implant.  This is a bit like a hip replacement but a much less common procedure as, unlike hips, elbows don’t usually wear out.  Hopefully, if successful, this would at least make the elbow stable.  So we went for it and for months I had to wear a brace on this arm to keep it steady whilst everything settled down.  Once recovered, I found I could still not rotate this arm very well.  The reason being that the two forearm bones, the radius and the ulna, were different lengths.  The obvious solution is to shorten the Ulna right?!  So, back to hospital we go to have my Ulna shortened by about 12mm.

Several months and more plaster casts later and I could use the right arm, but still with very limited rotation.  So, things were getting back to normality, but this arm was and still is extremely weak.  The good news was that I could get on the bike, although it was a bit painful.

*****

Wind forward again to summer 2012 and life was good.  I’d been out of the ‘rat race’ for a few years but I’d kept myself busy doing some consultancy work and training for a few large companies.  The main thing was that I could work when I wanted to and this meant freedom to come and go as we pleased between our homes in the UK and Spain.  Possibly the happiest time was when we drove at a leisurely pace through France and Spain in our new, black Porsche Boxster S and then stayed at the house for all of July and August.  The sun was hot, the pool was cool, friends and family came and went and I thought life couldn’t get any better.

Rick and Wendy visited and chatting to Rick one evening we talked about the need for us to go off on some kind of adventure once he stopped working and we both had time to do stuff together.  It looked as though he was going to sell his business sometime after the Olympics (which was a massive opportunity for a business that hires out barriers – the sort you see at the side of the road during marathons or cycle races).  A few stupid ideas were discussed (as we were very drunk) and after much discussion we settled on a plan for us to cycle from our homes in the UK to the house in Spain… around 1,600 miles.  At the time (2am after several bottle of Rioja) this seemed like the most sensible idea we had ever had.  Two middle aged men cycling through England and France, going over the Pyrenees and half way through Spain.  What could possibly go wrong?

The planning was left to me as Rick was still working and I had the time to do it   We would take it easy… just 60 or 70 miles per day and we weren’t going to rough it… we were getting too old for tents.  So, with our clothes and essential equipment (hair gel, etc) in our panniers and credit cards in our pockets, we would stay at guest houses along the way.  And if we felt like a day off to enjoy the food and wine to excess then that would be fine.  This was going to be awesome.  One last, big, daft adventure before we both got too old or just ‘grew up’ as our partners preferred to say.

In early summer 2013, Rick let me know that the sale of his business was underway and he reckoned he would be a ‘free man’ by March 2014.  So, the plan was to set off in late May 2014, arriving in Moraira on the Costa Blanca, Spain by mid to late June.  That meant using the autumn to do some road cycling to build our fitness.  I had a cycle trainer in the garage at home so I could keep up the effort through the winter until spring encouraged us back onto the roads in time to really hone our fitness for the challenge ahead.

We would need new bikes for this adventure.  My previous experiences and detailed research told me that a steel framed touring bike would be best.  Panniers would fit properly and the steel frame could be easily repaired in the event of mishaps.  So we agreed on buying all the gear we needed from a specialist shop that happened to be based in Halifax.  We both chose shiny new Dawes Galaxy touring bikes.  We bought the panniers, shoes, etc, etc and the most important thing of all – a Brooks leather saddle.  These saddles are hand-made in the old fashioned way by real craftsmen.  You have to rub wax into them and break them in so they mould to the shape of your arse, leaving you with the most comfortable ride possible.  Round the world cyclists swear by them so they were a must!

So by July 2013 we had the gear… the route was planned… now we just needed to get fit!

*****

Linda and I had arranged a night out in Manchester on Saturday the 3^rd August with our friends John and Michelle.  We’d met them on holiday a couple of years earlier and had become really good friends.  We took turns to stay over at each other’s houses and it was our turn to stay with them at their lovely house in Charlesworth, a small village just outside Glossop.  This also presented a good opportunity for a bike ride… an ‘expedition training ride’ as I planned to call them from now on.  The original plan was that Linda would drive home on the Sunday morning whilst I cycled the 33 miles from Charlesworth to Chesterfield to stay with Rick and Wendy on the Sunday night.  I would then cycle back home to Luddenden on the Monday morning.  That ride was about 65 miles and a good workout for the legs and lungs over the hills.

On the Friday I checked the weather forecast so I would know what kit to take – it was August, so I was hoping to be able to travel very light.  However, to my dismay I saw that, whilst Sunday was set to be a nice sunny day, the forecast for Monday was lousy.  Wind and heavy rain.  So I made the sensible decision to cycle the 33 miles home from Charlesworth on Sunday.  I could go over to Rick’s anytime and I really didn’t fancy a 65 mile ride in wind and rain – especially after what would inevitably be a very boozy Sunday night with Rick!

Was it fate that made me cycle that way on the Sunday?  What if I hadn’t seen the weather forecast and stuck to my original plan?  One of the many ‘what if’ questions that I would later torture myself with whilst lying in hospital with too much time to reflect.

*****

We had a cracking night out in Manchester with John and Michelle.  Cocktails first in the old Liberal Club, now an uber-trendy bar followed by dinner at a San Carlos, a well known Italian restaurant.  The wine flowed and we had a great time.  We caught the last train home and then we talked into the night with a little more red wine.  Finally to bed and a modest amount of sleep before an early start the next morning.  John and Michelle were going to watch England play cricket at Old Trafford that morning so we had to have a fairly early start.  Still, there was time for a decent breakfast and more chat before it was time to leave.

It was a really beautiful, warm August Sunday morning.  Despite the previous night’s fun I felt absolutely fine.  Linda has asked me many times if I had a hangover and did this cause the accident.  I am convinced it didn’t.  To be honest… I’m not such a fan of cycling that I would have wanted to cycle 33 miles home if I was feeling hung over.  The planned adventure was still 9 months away so it wasn’t so critical to start my training regime right there and then.

“Come home in the car with me”.  She said

“No, you go ahead and I’ll be back by mid afternoon”

What if…?

*****

After saying goodbye to Linda and our hosts, I was off.  Down the hill, across the main road, then it was a nice quiet country road.  The sun was shining, I was riding my lovely new touring bike and I was looking forward to the ride home.  I’ve just checked with Google Maps.  I got exactly 1 mile down the road.  Then it happened.  I went round a sweeping right hand bend past a Catholic church on my left.  I noticed a large statue of Jesus looking at me.  Then I noticed that about a quarter of a mile ahead there was a sharp left turn onto a very narrow bridge over the river that was running alongside the road.  The road I was on narrowed a little and I could see a car coming towards me.  What happened then is not 100% clear in my mind but I felt there was a car just behind me and right on my shoulder.  I’m sure it didn’t hit me, but I felt pressured to move towards the inside edge of the road to make sure that it didn’t.  Reflecting on this later, I’m pretty sure that this car was determined to get past me before the bridge and the long narrow road that followed through the village of Broadbottom when it would be stuck behind me for a while.

There was no pavement at the roadside… that ran out a good few yards behind me.  There was just mud and as first my front wheel and then the rear wheel went over it I could feel myself losing control of the bike.  Braking only caused me to slide and wobble.  I knew that some kind of fall was inevitable.

Now, for the last 20 yards or so there had been a dry stone wall along the roadside… about 5 feet high.  Had I hit this, I would have probably scraped my left leg and then fallen down at the side of the road.  A few cuts and bruises maybe.  At worst perhaps a leg injury.  What if…?  However, at the point where I lost control the dry stone wall was only 20 inches high (I know this as it was measured afterwards by the police).  So, given that I was sitting astride a bike and my centre of gravity was quite high, when I ran along this small wall it had the effect of tipping me over the wall sideways.  What happened next is a bit of a blur.  The bike came over the wall with me as I was wearing shoes that clipped onto the pedals.  Then suddenly I wasn’t attached to the bike.  I was obviously flying through the air backwards as I could see the tree branches moving away from me.  What the hell was happening?  Why have I not just landed on the grass?  I didn’t realise that I was falling down a steep embankment.  Then I just stopped moving and I felt the most unbelievable pain in my back.  I didn’t know it then, but I had hit a tree, full on.  I then fell again but this time it was straight down and I landed, face down in the river, which I guess was no more than about 8 inches deep.

I was face down.  My cycling sunglasses were gone and I had my eyes open.  I could see pebbles beneath me and I was aware of the water flowing around my head.  I thought I had better lift myself up and figure out what was going on.  But I couldn’t move… not an inch.  My right arm was trapped under my body and I couldn’t move it.  I ran my left arm down my side and then to my leg.  I couldn’t feel it.  I instinctively knew that this was bad – very bad indeed.  I had not swallowed or breathed in any water but I knew that this was going to happen if I couldn’t move.  I held my breath for as long as I could.  And then I went very, very calm.  No fear… no panic… no profound thoughts… my life didn’t flash before my eyes.  I just knew that all I had to do was open my mouth and breathe and everything would be alright.  I relaxed and waited for my last lungful of air to run out.

Now… we’ve all heard stories about people summoning up super human strength in moments of extreme need.  Like the mum who lifts up the car to save her baby trapped underneath.  I’d never been sure that I believed them… but I do now.  Somehow, as I opened my mouth and knew I was about to start drowning, I managed to push myself up and onto my right side and get my head out of the water.  (If I tried lying on my stomach right now with my arm under me I know I couldn’t repeat the manoeuvre).  As I forced the stale, used air out and gasped in a lungful of fresh air the calmness disappeared and I felt fear, panic and every other emotion imaginable.  For some bizarre reason I distinctly remember that the instruction manual for the Brooks saddle had a warning not to get it wet and I was annoyed about this!  What a ridiculous thought!

I was immediately concerned that, as I couldn’t move I would obviously need to try and attract someone’s attention – but on a quiet Sunday morning who would see me or hear me?  I shouted for help… but my voice was very week.  I barely heard myself over the noise of the river.  I kept on shouting for a while.  I don’t know how long as I think I was passing in and out of consciousness.  In between trying to shout I was sobbing and I kept on saying over and over again “Please God, not my legs… not my legs… not now”.  I’m not a religious person… at best I’m an agnostic.  But all I know is that I was praying to someone or something to save me.  I was begging over and over again.

Then I stopped shouting.  I was too weak.  The water was very cold and I just had thin Lycra on so I guess I was starting to suffer from exposure.  I went calm again and just wanted to go to sleep.  All I could do was whisper “Please, someone, help me” in between the sobs.  I reached the point where I was absolutely convinced that I was going to die and I said goodbye to Linda, Kirsty, Vicky, my mum… and myself.

Then I heard a woman’s voice shouting.  “There’s someone in the river!”

I passed out again I think because the next thing I was aware of was some splashing around me.  A father and son who were camping nearby were the first to get to me and they tried to keep me awake by talking to me and asking me who I was and where I lived.  The handle bar bag I had must have burst open and the contents, including my phone were thrown around the crash site so it’s a good job they got this information from me.

I was vaguely aware of a siren in the distance that was obviously the ambulance someone had summoned.  I imagine in other circumstances they might have called for an air ambulance so I could be transported to hospital in the shortest possible time.  However, I was in a valley and there were large trees everywhere so it wouldn’t have been able to land anywhere nearby.

Once the paramedics were there, I remember a lot of splashing but nothing else.  They must have put me on a stretcher or some kind of board but I simply don’t remember.  I now know that there were several groups involved in trying to rescue me.  There were fire-fighters from Stalybridge and a boat rescue service from Heywood.  There was also a heart trauma team with the paramedics.  I could hear them discussing the best way to get me to the ambulance.  One voice said “We need to take him up the bank”.  Another voice said “Our protocol says we should go across the river and around on the flat”.  This made me angry and I remember shouting “For fuck’s sake just get me out of this river!!”

I don’t remember anything more until I awoke in Salford Royal two weeks later.  And that’s where we came in…

*****

Rick revisited the site a few days later and recovered my iphone which had landed about 20 yards away.  Incredibly, it was unmarked and it worked fine.  One sock was found and both my cycling shoes (which were brand new).  These later fetched £20 on eBay.  The bike was taken to a police station where it was later inspected.  There was concern about the brakes but everything was fine.  Incredibly there was just a bit of scratching on the left side of the front forks but no other damage.  Once it was clear that no one else needed to inspect the bike, this too was sold on eBay for a ridiculously small sum, despite the listing claiming “One careful owner!”

It seems that if you are in a cycle accident but you don’t die, the police don’t do much investigating.  But to be fair, there was little they could do.  No car actually hit me – I was pretty certain about that.  There were no witnesses, so what could they do?  The local paper, the ‘Glossop Chronicle’ ran a front page story – “CYCLIST IN RIVER RESCUE!”  This was big news in a sleepy village like Broadbottom.  Witnesses were sought but no one came forward.  The journalist got the phone numbers of the father and son who were first to get to me and these were eventually passed to Linda.  But no one saw the woman who first shouted out.  I imagine it was someone perhaps walking a dog who just didn’t want to hang around or get involved.  My sister has an entirely different opinion on this.  She is convinced that this mystery woman was in fact my ‘guardian angel’.  Now, I don’t believe in that sort of thing – but I’m not inclined to argue with her on this occasion – because whoever she was, if she hadn’t spotted me I’m sure I wouldn’t be here.

I don’t know why, but it took me a long time to feel that I could contact the father and son who were first on the scene.  Maybe I didn’t know what to say.  What can you say other than “Thank you”?  The words are just nowhere near adequate.  Maybe I just didn’t think I could actually get the words out of my mouth – I’m an emotional man at the best of times so I knew it would be hard for me to even speak.  Eventually (14 months later when I was at home) I texted their numbers and sent this message…

“Hello, is it Stephen and Graham?

I am the cyclist who you helped to rescue on the 4th August last year at Broadbottom.

I am sorry I have not been in touch with you before but the last year has been difficult both physically and emotionally.

I just wanted to say “thank you”. Those words are not enough as I suspect that I would have died were it not for your help. But it is all I can say.

I have been in hospital for a year and I am now permanently in a wheelchair due to a complete break in my spinal cord.  I had an impressive collection of other injuries too and to be honest I don’t think the hospital expected me to survive.  But I did!

So thank you!”

Within minutes, an emotional Stephen called me.  He sounded like he was in shock.  He said that he and his father had phoned the hospital several times but of course they would not give them any information as they were not family.  They had been back to the same campsite exactly a year later and asked around the village to see if anyone knew what had happened to me.  No one could tell them anything positive and a couple of people said that they thought I hadn’t survived.  So his shock at hearing from me was understandable and I have rarely heard someone sound so pleased!

****

But let’s go back to the day of the accident.  What about Linda?  She was at home by 10am and doing a few jobs about the house, wondering what time I would arrive back.  Then the phone rang…

 

Chapter 3: What’s he done this time?

On the left side of my room there is a very large glass window and I can see that there are all sorts of monkeys in the room next to mine.  One doctor keeps coming and going and the small chimps cling to him.  Hanging on a strap from the ceiling there is a small steel tube covered with black rubber.  It looks almost like a thick coat hanger, but I have worked out that it must be a contraption that they strap parakeets in when they have a broken spine.

I am currently being kept in a pet shop.   The main entrance must be downstairs because I keep hearing the door opening and closing, accompanied by a bell – probably above the door like in old fashioned shops.

I keep thinking “This no way to run a hospital”.

No idea what might have triggered this hallucination, but the black rubber contraption was in fact the part of a ceiling hoist where you attach the straps on a patient lifting sling.  This hallucination happened more than once and continued when I was finally awake and I could vaguely see around me.  I argued several times with Linda about this as I was so convinced I was really in a pet shop.

*****

I really wanted Linda to write this chapter.  But she simply can’t.  And I totally get why.  It’s just too painful to go over it ‘out loud’ so to speak.  I can’t write this chapter because it needs to cover the period just after I was taken to hospital and of course I was in a coma by then.  My daughter, Vicky has perhaps found it hardest to talk about what happened… but she wrote some stuff down and what follows is her account of the first few minutes, hours and days after that phone rang at home.

*****

Vicky’s words…

Sometimes things hit you like a ton of bricks over and over again and for me this is that thing.

“K? Will you come to Tesco with me to buy a microwave?”  Sunday 4th August 2013, the first Sunday I spent in my new home I was renting with two of my friends.  I wanted to make a roast dinner.  It was a Sunday and I was being grown up, doing cooking in my new house!   I took my car to the supermarket up the road and my house mate went into to get it for me whilst I waited in my car.  I just thought I would check my phone and saw a few missed calls from mum.  I rang her back but there was no answer.  A couple of minutes later she rang me back again.  I answered and in return I heard a very panicked voice saying “Your dad’s been in an accident and I don’t really know what’s happened but it sounds really serious.”  Straight away I ring K to tell him to forget it, I need to get to my mum and dad’s.

The drive took about 20 minutes to get to our house.  Once there I was greeted by Kirsty and Mum not really knowing what to say to each other.  The Manchester police were in touch with the Halifax police, trying to sort out transport for us to be taken across to Manchester royal as they didn’t think it would be a good idea for us to drive.  As we waited and waited I eventually thought, sod this lets, go I’ll drive.  Looking back, I probably shouldn’t have driven as I can’t even remember most of the journey.  Kirst sat in the front with me and mum in the back and it was more or less silent the whole journey.  We got told that when we arrived to leave our car anywhere and that a nurse would be waiting at reception for us.

We arrived, put the car in the nearest parking space I could see and made our way to the reception.  A nurse was there just as they said and she guided us into a family room.  We all sat down just looking at her and another person who was in the room as well. She started to introduce herself and her colleague to which I then started to get quite annoyed.  I couldn’t care less what her name was I just wanted to know what happened.  She then proceeded to tell us that you had been found at a bottom of a bridge in water. “We think his bike hit a tree stump and he then dropped over the bridge 20-30 feet into the water.  He has multiple injuries and has just come out of surgery as he tore the main valve to his heart.”  At this point my breathing got a bit heavier, Kirsty sat there sobbing and mum just stared in complete shock.  My breathing kept getting heavier the more she was telling us and I couldn’t catch my breath, then out of nowhere this noise just came out of my mouth and I couldn’t breathe properly through crying.  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, it sounded like such a far-fetched accident that it wasn’t real.  I still don’t think up to that point anyone had actually told us that you were still alive.

After she had gone through more details with us about what was happening with you they then left us to gather our thoughts.  I wanted to get some fresh air, so I walked out of the room into the reception waiting room area heading towards the doors.  I remember thinking people were looking at me because I couldn’t stop crying and they must have just thought someone had died and they gave me a look of pity.  I went outside and crouched down on the floor to phone my house mate and let him know what was happening, again not believing what I was saying to him.

Eventually the nurse came out to get me as we were going up to see you.  She took us up and all I kept thinking was I don’t want to see you… I don’t want to see you.  I didn’t know what you were going to look like and I was petrified I wouldn’t recognise you.  Kirsty and mum went ahead first, around the other side of the corner and into the curtains and the nurse stayed behind with me. It was like I was hitting a brick wall trying to step further into the room to see you.  The nurse was holding my hand and I just stood there.  My leg was just twitching backwards and forwards, doing something of its own accord and I just stood there crying not moving further at all.  The nurse even started crying, for which she was very apologetic, she could see how nervous I was just to even see you.  Eventually I went around the corner and joined mum and Kirst.

It was you, but it wasn’t you.  You had a big thing on you that looked like a lilo to keep you warm, you had tubes coming out of your sides, your mouth, your hands, your nose, machinery everywhere bleeping, creaking and bleeping again.  You had a collar on and yellow blocks either side of your head.  You had your eyes closed but with a creepy slight gap in them.  They looked sticky and shiny where they had put stuff on them to keep them moist.  You had really puffy hands that I just stood there and kept stroking, thinking you were going to hold my hand back at some point – but your fingers just stayed straight and didn’t grip at all.  The machines would start bleeping again and the monitors would be flashing to which me Kirst and mum would look around at each other like “What’s that, what does that mean, is he breathing, is he dying what is it?!”

Your chest was lifting up and down in a really weird way like it was being forced up and down, which it was.  You weren’t working, your body was doing nothing for itself, these machines around you were the only things keeping you alive.  We all just stood there staring at you, stroking you, crying, nurses telling us to talk to you as you can hear us talking.  All I could do was stare and about once every few minutes shake my head in disbelief.  Kirst and mum talked to you, stroked your forehead which twitched a little like you liked it.  Two nurses were constantly at the end of the bed looking at your charts, writing stuff down, changing the tubes of drugs and pressing things on the monitors that just kept bleeping.  Someone else came around and took the neck brace off you as your breathing, or should I say the machine’s breathing was being restricted as you were too swollen for it.  There was no gap between your chin and chest at all, you looked like someone had pumped you full of air.  After a few more shakes of the head Kirsty and mum carried on talking to you, all I can remember is mum saying “You’re safe, you’re safe, you’re in the hospital but you’re safe now.”  I don’t know why, but Kirst said something to you about being able to do something with Charles and after a couple of seconds your eyes popped open and you looked in complete terror.  You started trying to lift your neck and your arms, choking because the tubes were down your throat, I screamed out “Oh my god what’s happening he’s awake!”  The nurses all rushed around and just injected something into one of the tubes and that was it – lifeless again.  I had to go away from you, it was too much for me to see you, my dad, this person who is supposed to be stronger than me, just lying there, not knowing if I was ever going to talk to you again, argue with you again, tell you I love you in a slightly sarcastic voice because we never really said it to each other.  It was all just too much.

After a while the nurses showed us to a little self-contained room where families could stay if there was a chance of the patient not making it.  It had bedrooms, a toilet, shower room and also a lounge room with a TV, etc.  We went and sat up there for a little while as it was getting late now.  Kirst decided to stay that night even though it was hard because she had Charles.  She went to sleep for a while.  Me and mum sat in the lounge room, a lot of the time in silence but every now and again just bursting out into tears shaking our heads again.  There was no way I was going to sleep that night I was frightened as soon as I went to sleep we would get a phone call from the nurses saying come down quick it’s time you need to say goodbye.  I think it got to around two or three in the morning and I went back downstairs to see you again.  I just sat there beside you with my hand holding onto yours, watching the screens looking at your heart rate going up and down and when it would get too low the machines would start bleeping again sending me into a blind panic.

The next day I started to get to know what all the machines were doing, why they were bleeping, etc., although sometimes when we would come and see you again there would be something new.  One thing was the dialysis machine cause your kidneys had stopped working, just another thing to add to the list of your injuries.  Most of the time as well you were tilted on a downward slant, this was to take the pressure off your chest as it had lots of blood clots on it from the impact of landing.

Every now and again we would get taken into a room with a doctor and nurse and they would run through what was happening with you.  It’s hard to remember all the things they went through as each day seemed to be different battles.  But one thing they kept saying is that you were very poorly and they wouldn’t be able to say you’re out of the woods yet.

Thinking back now I’m not sure when we got told about you might not being able to walk.  We knew that you had broken your back in a number of places, but all I could think about is if you were still with us mentally.  To me the worst thing that could have happened is for you to have woken up and you not be you… They told us on your scan that your brain looked normal but they wouldn’t be able to know until you were awake…

At some point the next day I made a phone call to Auntie Margaret to tell her the news of what had happened.  So your two older sisters, Margaret and Irene, arrived on the Tuesday.  I remember them arriving at the hospital and us showing them up to the family rooms where we had pretty much set up camp with Will and Charles coming back every day.  I took them down to see you and as soon as we walked around the corner and saw you I remember Irene grabbing your hand and sobbing and shouting “My baby!”  Margaret was trying to comfort the both of us.  After a few minutes we composed ourselves and Irene and Margaret sat there chatting around you to the nurses telling stories about you, so I left them to it for a while.

Each day was a ‘tick off day’ to another day you had survived.  We were all just wishing time away.  The one thing that always cheered me up was having a cuddle with Charles.  He will never know how much joy he bought us over that time period, but I’m also glad he won’t remember it.  I’m glad he won’t have to go through seeing you in a different way, because it’s been one of the most heart breaking things to go through.  To him you will just be “Grandad Wheels”…

The hours kept on passing by and we would get told something good and then two things bad.  We’d sit with you, talk with you, cry over you, shake our heads about you and it was utterly draining.  The nights were the longest.  Kirsty decided to start going home and come back each morning as she needed to be with Charles, which of course was the right thing to do.  Me and mum would sit up and talk then mum would try and go to get some sleep and I would sit and just watch some “shit TV” as you call it to distract myself.  Most of the time it wasn’t working.  All I could think about was how lost mum was looking.  I could see the panic in her eyes each day.  One day Kirsty had to physically put her to bed as she just broke down.

Throughout the week various people came to the hospital to see you and us. Your best friend Rick came as soon as he could and also one of my best mates Vicki.  Each new person that came and saw you pretty much had the same reaction, pure shock, they both knew how much of a big character you are and just seeing you lying there lifeless was unnatural to all of us.

One time, coming down from our rooms to see you, I stood waiting outside the doors waiting to be let in and an Asian guy stood next to me and asked if I was ok.  He said his brother was in the bed opposite you.  He asked if you were my dad and then proceeded to tell me that he prayed for you every night.  I remember just thinking, wow how lovely is that, of course I burst out crying at him and just said thank you.  I didn’t know what else to say.

After a week we got told that you were being moved to Salford hospital as it was more of a spinal injuries hospital.  A feeling of panic set in again as we had got used to being there, comfortable with the nurses and the surroundings.  In our eyes you were safe there.

The move took place at night time, we got to the hospital before you and then watched them wheel you in on the bed.  All the tubes and machines still in and around you.  They took you to your new room.  Again a nurse was with you 24/7.  You were still sedated in your coma.  We got to know the nurses at this hospital a lot more as you were in a private room.  Each time we came to see you we had to wait in the waiting room, full of sad faces with people going through their own nightmares.  Then we had to come in through a separate door, put gloves on and an apron and come in to see you.  Me and mum again stayed in the hospital for just under a week.

This was the place that you were going to be woken up.  This was the place that was going to start making you even better, although this was also the place where we were going to find out if you were still you as in ‘in your head’ and also physically.

They tried to wake you up a few times but you kept panicking so they would put you back under.  Eventually after a few goes you were awake, although still so ‘out of it’ because of all the drugs you were on.  You were still on 100% oxygen so not doing anything for yourself.  Since you were awake when we came in to see you we had slightly lucid moments where I think you would recognise us and blink your eyes or try and smile a little when we would talk to you etc.  This was comforting as at least you knew who we are, which also gave us an indication that you might be ok in the head.  You were being fed through a tube with a yellow milkshake looking liquid and you still had a lot of machines around you.  Days went by where it was again ‘something’s got better and something’s got worse’, but everyday felt like a miracle that you were still here, as every time we had a talk with the doctors not once did they say “He is out of the woods now”.

I remember coming to see you one day and something had changed which meant sometimes you were able to talk.  I walked into the room and you said “Hello gorgeous” well that was it, I was gone.  Just to hear your voice although quite a squeaky version of your voice was amazing.

It got to the point where all your major injuries that where life threatening were settling down and mending slowly.  The next stage was your back.  It was getting more evident that you probably wouldn’t be able to walk again and once it was confirmed to us first we had to get our heads around it.  It was a strange feeling knowing this information before you, but you were still not always lucid from all the drugs, so they could have told you but you might not have remembered.  I remember Kirst took the news quite bad when she was told, whereas I just couldn’t help but think, well that’s ok – at least he is here.  If that’s the worst case scenario, we can deal with this.  It wasn’t until it actually started to settle in, and you knew about it, that I then realised what that meant.  And one thought that really made me sad, was that whenever the day came when I got married, I wouldn’t have that special experience of you walking me down the aisle.  I know it sounds silly as people said “at least he is still here right?” which was true, but I still had that little thought.  But now I think it will be fine.  We can do it the unconventional way and just have fun with it.  I still know I’m going to be able to see that face “sucking lemons” (which means what he looks like when he cries).

Fast forward nearly 3 years, and things are better, still a few struggles and other obstacles to overcome, but things are so much better than before.  I still have a few moments where I realise what happened, but like I said at the beginning of this, some things hit you like a ton of bricks, over and over again, and for me, this will probably always be it.

Vicky