Biker masked torment ‘behind a smile’ after horror crash changed everything

Gary Dawson was just 19 when he suffered the road accident that would change his life forever. Enduring injuries that left him ‘screaming with his eyes’, the fallout from the crash would see him sink into addiction, isolation and depression. A routine visit to his GP would completely turn things around for him. Twenty years on from the accident, he has a job, plays sport, has travelled the world – and is able to drive – despite being paralysed from the chest down. Here, Gary gives hope to people struggling with the emotional toll of life changing injury by telling the story of his 20 year recovery journey.

Lying in a hospital bed, Gary Dawson looked up at the fluorescent lights through the cracks between his eyelids. His brain was foggy. He felt extremely confused.

As he went to move his body, Gary realised he was no longer dreaming. He was paralysed from the chest down and would never walk again.

Unable to speak due to an oxygen tube in his windpipe, Gary was left to deal with the inconceivable ordeal alone in his head. “All I could do was scream at people with my eyes,” he said. “I was saying kill me, I can’t do this.”

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Then 19, the electrician’s apprentice, from Oldham, had enjoyed clubbing and riding sports bikes before that fateful day.

But everything changed in the blink of an eye when he came off his Suzuki 650s as he was slowing down at a set of traffic lights in May 2003.

The bike fell and followed Gary along the road before crushing him against a car, changing the course of his life in an instant.

The A&E team at Trafford General Hospital stabilised Gary before transferring him to Salford Royal, but the damage had already been done.

When his test results were seen by a consultant, he uttered a sentence Gary will never forget: “These results are incompatible with life.”

He was later moved to a private hospital for a fixation operation on his spine, which had been crushed just below the level of his shoulder blades.

Unfortunately, he says, the medics were inexperienced in dealing with spinal injuries, and after just 24 hours Gary couldn’t stop vomiting and his skin had turned yellow.

In agony, Gary, now 39, was rushed back to the Salford Royal where his heart stopped on arrival. Over the next few hours his heart stopped on multiple occasions, each time he was saved by being resuscitated by the cardio and A&E teams.

When a large blood clot was discovered near his heart, a consultant told his family he may die within the next 15 minutes.

Gary then had complete organ failure and fell into a coma. After more than ten hours of resuscitation, the team miraculously managed to save his life.

Ten days later, Gary woke from his coma and was given the devastating news of his paralysis. “I didn’t know anyone who was disabled,” he said. “And though I’d been in a coma for ten days, I just couldn’t sleep.

“My mind was racing, thinking my life is totally over. I was listing all the things I’d never do again, and the list was endless.”

Through a fog of pain and medication, Gary recalls his consultant explaining that he’d never walk again – but he was the luckiest person ever still to be alive.

“In one second, I felt it was amazing to be alive, but in the next second I was so miserable because I didn’t want to be disabled,” he added. “My emotions fluctuated like a heart monitor.”

Recovery and rehabilitation

The long process of recovery and rehabilitation began with Gary moving into the Spinal Unit at Southport Hospital. “I felt like I’d won the lottery. Being there with my peers was phenomenal,” he said.

“For the first time I could see a life of some kind. It gave my mental health a big boost. I saw people were going to the gym, going to the pub and even shops.

“I met three other lads there, and we just talked through the nights. Just chatting to people who knew how I felt was brilliant.

“And I took to wheelchair use very easily, and all of the staff were fantastic. I really enjoyed my time in rehab. I was there seven weeks in all, and they teach you to be independent within the spinal unit. So, I thought, ‘this is brilliant, I’m independent, I’m going home’.

“But at the same time, I was beating myself up. My mind was telling me I was useless, and I was weak. I was still focusing on everything I couldn’t do. I felt so vulnerable and terrified.”

Dark times

Gary says it was the support of his family and friends which helped him navigate his way through his dark thoughts. “But in the back of my mind, there were still so many negative thoughts. I just hid them well,” he added.

He went to live back at his mum’s house where he found that the safety net of the NHS and 24/7 care were suddenly gone.

“I was back in the real world – and I was absolutely terrified,” he continued. “The inaccessibility of mum’s house was a challenge, I now had to use a commode, and I had to go to my gran’s house to take a bath.

“But more than that, my friends had all moved away to university and my parents were back at work. Their lives had moved on but mine hadn’t. I really struggled with this.”

Gary, who now works as a support network manager for the Spinal Injuries Association charity, moved to an independent living facility, a purpose-built bungalow in a cul-de-sac, where other people with disabilities were his neighbours. And although he was relieved to move out of his mum’s, Gary felt utterly isolated and incredibly vulnerable.

“I felt too scared to leave the house, he said. “What if I fell out of the wheelchair? What if people laughed at me?

“So, I did what I always did – I hid behind my big smile. Which didn’t work, because my coping mechanism became alcohol and drugs.

“I’d wake up and drink Jack Daniels for breakfast and smoke weed all day. I didn’t bother eating. Then I started self-harming. I was so frustrated and angry I’d punch my paralysed legs.

“One day I ruptured the veins in my leg, so the blood ran into my muscle. I was rushed to hospital with suspected deep vein thrombosis. No one questioned me.”

After six months in his own home, Gary’s weight had dropped to just six stone.

“All I can remember is just drinking JD, smoking weed and not eating a thing,” he said. “I had pernicious anaemia. My family thought I was losing muscle mass because I wasn’t moving. And when my friends visited, they’d buy me booze. On my 20th birthday everybody bought me bottles of Jack Daniels – I had around 15!

“I kept a notebook, and I’d write whatever was in my head. It says, ‘I want to tell someone. I want to die,’ I was so jealous of able-bodied people. And nobody understood what I was going through, nobody.”

Back on track

Thankfully, a routine visit to his GP put Gary back on the road to recovery. “My GP was amazing,” he added. “She prescribed me anti-depressants, which really helped with my insomnia. Once I could sleep better, I could focus much more. I gave up the weed, I drank less, and I started eating again.

“One thing that made a huge difference was getting my driver’s licence. I took control of my life again. And when I was awake at 3am feeling stressed or angry, I could drive to my 24-hour Tesco and chat with the staff – it was a lovely distraction.

“But the most amazing thing was, I could now visit my local disability sports club, the Bury Blue Devils. And from that first day my life instantly turned right around.

“I was back among my peers. Everyone in the room had an understanding of disability. Suddenly being able to speak to people about how they were living their lives was amazing.”

A bright future

Gary joined a local basketball team and went on to become a part of the TeamGP programme, attending sports camps and training up to 50 hours a week.

“I was eating properly, and gradually I gained weight and my muscles returned,” he said. “Through sport, I was able to overcome my depression. I got past the abyss and I began to see a future. The basketball gave me something to aim for. Everything that had scared me before suddenly seemed less frightening.”

Gary started volunteering with Spinal Injuries Association when he was in rehabilitation, spending several years chatting with in-patients at Southport’s Spinal Unit. A chance meeting with an SIA support worker in Manchester led to Gary applying for the role of community peer support officer – and he’s been working for the charity ever since.

‘I’ve actually had the most amazing life,” he said. “I’ve travelled around the world and I’ve hand-cycled all over Europe for the SIA. I’m in a great relationship now. I still have mental health issues, they didn’t go away 100 per cent, but by no means am I depressed.

“I’m still scared that someone is going to judge me, and some days strangers ask me the most personal questions, which I don’t appreciate. And when I have to go somewhere new in my wheelchair I still feel insecure. I have issues with body dysmorphia, it’s always at the back of my mind.

“I would hate for anyone to suffer the way I suffered. I came so close to not being here at all, because I didn’t tell anyone how I was feeling. I masked everything behind my smile. But you must talk to someone. You really must.”

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