Begin Again with Davina McCall - Ed Jackson: How Nearly Losing His Life Gave Him a New Reason to Live

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

In this episode of Begin Again, Davina McCall sits down with former rugby player Ed Jackson to explore his extraordinary journey of resilience and reinvention. After a devastating spinal injury ended his career, Ed was forced to confront his own mortality—but instead of giving up, he found a new purpose. He shares the mindset shifts that helped him defy expectations, the road to recovery, and how his near-death experience inspired him to live life to the fullest. From scaling mountains against all odds to empowering others to overcome their own challenges, Ed’s story is a powerful testament to resilience, hope, and the strength of the human spirit. Inspiring, uplifting, and deeply moving—this is one you won’t want to miss. Follow me here: www.instagram.com/beginagain https://www.tiktok.com/@beginagainpod  (00:00) Intro (01:38) Childhood and Beginnings in Rugby (06:51) The Power of Luck (08:33) Parenting: Nature vs. Nurture (14:26) Rugby Career (16:30) Falling in Love (19:01) The Accident That Changed Everything (30:36) Confronting Death and Embracing Life (36:38) Adobe Ad (37:54) Life360 Ad (39:03) Falling in Love With Being Alive (44:59) Paralysis and His Time in the Hospital (48:13) How My Support Network Saved My Life (51:02) Finding Motivation and the Road to Rehabilitation (54:06) The Recovery Journey (1:03:06) The Role of Friends and Family in Recovery (1:13:13) Millimeters to Mountains: A New Mission (1:27:25) Almost Dying on a Mountain (1:37:59) My Most Important Life Lessons (1:42:09) Being a Role Model and Redefining Masculinity (1:46:05) Final Thoughts with Davina Adobe - https://www.adobe.com/uk/express/  Life360 - https://www.life360.com/uk/  Download Life360 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After seven days, I was told, that's it. You're not going to walk again. So tell me what happened. I just went down to their pool, jumped and I dived in steeply. But it turned out to only be three feet deep. I'd hit my head so hard on the top that I'd lost all movement and sensation from below the neck. And I was like, I'm going to drown. So you actually died?

Yeah. What's it like? I felt like I was going to be a burden on everyone for the rest of my life. It was really, really dark. And then I was just like, Mom! Oh my God. that was the turning point. I had some hope that there was a point

to putting in the effort to see how much I could recover. How did you get through it? I still didn't know what the rest of my life was going to look like. So I said to my physios, we're going to try and... Oh, wow.

And the next thing, we were on the summit of Snowden. And it was that moment that I realized that I felt so useless up until that point. But actually, but it's made me want to live,

you know, really live. I wouldn't take it back and not dive in the pools. What are your lasting lessons? One of the biggest takeaways is definitely... Oh my God. Yeah. Okay, I've got a favour to ask you.

I was just wondering if you could just give us a follow. It costs absolutely nothing. It's completely... So, Ed, obviously, you went through something very extraordinary, but you also had an extraordinary life before that. I'd love to talk to you a bit about how you came to rugby, because it wasn't your first sport of choice, was it? No.

So I'm from Bath and from the West Country, which is a big rugby area. But actually my two sports were swimming and tennis. I was, you know, the individual sports person. And a lot of that was because I wasn't socially that comfortable. And I loved the fact that swimming, you've got your head under the water. And tennis, it's just you and the coach. And I used to live, you know, out of the town. You know, it's just me and my brother used to hang around.

Which is funny now because people who know me now would say that's not me at all. Well, I was going to say, you're saying I was socially awkward. I was like, you were? Yeah, yeah, a bit. And I think I was just a bit into line. I actually, in hindsight, I think that was a product in my environment. It wasn't actually who I was because that ended up coming out when I did go into team sports. But to cut a long story short, I ended up getting very good at swimming and getting a scholarship to school called Millfield, which is a top swimming school.

What I didn't realize was how seriously they took swimming. So like three of the four individual medley team that won the gold medal in the Olympics for Britain were from my school. So like it's that serious. And we used to have to get up at 5 a.m. every morning and swim for like two hours before school and I'm 14 years old. So that didn't last very long. I was like in a boys boarding house, which was terrifying for me because I was quite socially awkward or insular before. But that started bringing me out of myself because you had to. Being in a boys boarding house is like you learn a lot of survival skills because there's.

There's a lot of kids that are a lot older than you. And you've got to, you know, make friends and have teams and things like that. And a lot of my friends were playing rugby. It was also a big rugby school. And because I was quite big and because I was quite fit from swimming and all of those things, I just started playing rugby with them, took to it pretty quickly. And then within the next couple of years, I was playing, you know, age group stuff in my country. So, yeah, that's how it all started.

I mean, it is funny when you see somebody over six foot two. It's like rugby. Yeah, yeah. The ears are a game away as well. If you can't see, I've got nice cauliflower ears, which is pretty much all that's left to prove that I did play rugby. And so you ended up playing quite quickly for your school and then the local area? Yeah, I played. So I started playing properly at like 15. By 16, I played Somerset and then regional trials and then played for England. And the same with England under 18s. And then I signed for Bath, which was my hometown. club, you know, and I've been to the wreck as a kid and watched them play. So that was a dream

come true. And that was like, you know, I was one of these lucky people who got to do PE for a living, basically. And, you know, all the books went out the window when I was told I was going to get a professional contract, which is not the right thing to do. But yeah, it was a dream come true. I actually ended up having some some pretty serious injuries in the first couple of years of professional rugby. I mean, you go from being the biggest kid on the pitch to all of a sudden you're amongst men who are twice your size. And so there's that bedding in period. And I had it over mobile shoulders from doing butterfly and swimming. And I dislocated my shoulder and then dislocated it again.

And actually by the age of 21, I nearly had to retire. So I always see that as my first major sort of psychological hurdle I had to face because, yeah, rugby had become everything. And I almost lost it right at the beginning. So did you have to dig deep then into your resources in yourself? or how did you, I'm fascinated by your mindset, or people's mindset generally, are we born with it or does it happen to us?

Yeah. What's your take on that? And how did you get through that period? I think that's really interesting as well. And I think it's probably somewhere in between. I've met a lot of people that, you know, we'll get onto what happened later on, but who've said I wouldn't have been able to react in the way you did.

But I would have said that about myself at that point. You know, you surprise yourself when the backs against the walls. You may have realized, you know, how you react in different ways. But I did have a relatively positive disposition, like, before my accident, but nowhere to what it is now. But at that point, rugby had become my identity. Like, it given me, from quite an insular kid, you know, not one of the popular people, it given me social status within school, which meant that I were intricately tied it. into my personality and who I was.

So by the time five years later, when I'd been playing professional rugby that was going to get taken away at 21, I was terrified because it wasn't just rugby I'd be losing. It was like my whole identity. But I think fear drove me through to carry on. And I actually had to leave Bath and drop down to a lower league

and then built my way back up from there and ended up having a 10-year career, which I'm incredibly, you know, feel incredibly fortunate to have done. I think that's quite an interesting thing because you just said, I'm incredibly fortunate to have done. But in my head, you were just finding the word fortunate and I went proud. Yeah. Because it was you that did that.

It's not luck. No. Luck's an interesting one because, I mean, my book's called Lucky. But I'm writing another book called The Luck Paradox, which is sort of unpicking luck. You know, what does it mean? And I think there's luck in the circumstance. And the reason I played rugby or was good at rugby was because I was born six foot four. And I did have relatively good hand-eye coordination.

And my mum and dad wanted to be a swimmer and a tennis player. So they made me do that as a kid. They weren't conscious decisions from a younger age. And if I was, you know, born slightly differently, if academics was my strong point, you know, maybe I would have been lucky to go into finance or whatever that might have been where other people channel themselves. There was an element of circumstance that led me down that route. But I agree that it's not all just chance. Like, it's hard work.

Like, there was so many points where I could have given up or stopped with rugby, you know, injuries, the training you have to put in, the commitment, dedication to your life to a professional sport. And some people don't have the commitment to do that. But, you know, I did and I managed to carry on through. And, you know, I wasn't the best player in the world. They're much better players than me. But I was good enough to make it my job.

But I often see people that have really gifted that don't put the effort in because they have the gift. But it's the people who aren't quite as gifted as the gifted, but who have to put the effort in, who go the extra mile because they've had to work harder for it. And in a way, the rewards, I think, for them are better. I'm very interested as a parent of three children that what was your parents' parenting style?

What made you the grafter that you are? Or do you think that's half genetics, half child? Because I see kids that do nothing, that don't want to do anything. And I wonder what parenting style do you have to do to encourage your child to have that get up and go? Yeah. I think it was pretty formative. My mum was a primary school teacher. So we grew up thinking it was normal to have to do all your time to tables in the cup before the radio it was allowed on.

And we were only allowed to watch Discovery Channel. And like, looking back, if you knew what your friends are doing, you'd think that was kind of kind of like you'd be calling it out as child abuse. But obviously that's put, as in me and my brother, in a position where we are fascinated by the natural world or we do want to go and explore the history of places and travel and all of these sorts of things. But my dad as well, my dad came from a background,

you know, went to a state school in Sheffield. You know, he had a club foot. He liked sport but couldn't really participate. So he turned to books. And he managed to, you know, dedicate himself enough to his academics to get a place at Oxford, which was kind of unheard of from estate school back then. So he'd always had that grafts and that grit and determination. And actually growing up, he wasn't around much because he was always working.

And I just thought that was normal. And actually people say, oh, you should have been around more to your dad. I'm best managed for my dad. And I completely understand why he was like that. And what the life he managed to provide for us purely came from determination. It was never gifted. And I think from an early stage, I understood that to a certain extent or to a big extent, you get out of life what you put in.

Yes. It's really, I wish I'd interviewed you before I became a parent. Like it's just so good knowing. I mean, my kids are amazing. But I think that what you've just said is actually so helpful. That the way that you, what becomes normal for you guys, like the times tables or the times tables. Discovery Channel actually is so helpful. You know, you love the natural world, your love of mountains,

which we'll talk about a little bit later. But, you know, that was kickstarted. And look how much you got from that. Yeah, yeah. And my mum as well, she's a farmer's daughter. So she is, she's a bigger graft than my dad. Like, but, you know, she's the most incredible mum in the world. And we always grew up in a very loving household. And one of the things I think from being a farmer's daughter, and she used to, since she grew up, was going out and adventuring around the farm and, you know, getting muddy and, you know, playing with animals. And they allowed us to go and take risks. And we'd go off into the garden and or into the fields, into the woods, make

dens fall out of trees, and ourself, you know, all of these sorts of things. And that was a conscious decision to learn, you know, you learn the hard way. And I think that adventurous side is something that is obviously still in me with the things I do. But it's also something that potentially being lost a little bit, you know, these days. You know, you see all the time. I mean, obviously screens and things don't help. It's a distraction tactic.

We used to have to be bored and go and entertain ourselves. Well, some of my greatest thoughts and ideas come when I'm bored. Yeah. You know. How are you supposed to think up a new thing if you're scrolling? Yeah, exactly. How are you supposed to come up with a great new business idea? You're just like...

Yeah, exactly. And I think encouraging younger people to be less risk-averse is quite important. Good mission for you. Yeah, yeah. I mean, my mum would probably wish I was more risk-averse now, to be honest. She never even used to watch me play rugby. She couldn't. But they encouraged me to do the things that I was passionate about. They wanted me to be a swimmer or a tennis player. And they'd committed a lot of hours of their life to that. And then I turned around and said, don't want to do it anymore. And, you know, it was like, are you sure, but what do you want

to do? So I'm not sure yet, but I want to do something different. And they just supported me with that, you know, which was, which has been incredible. And they've always supported me with everything I wanted to do. And I've taken a lot of leaps of faith, especially since my accident, because I got in the fuck it mode. I'm just going to like follow my gut and go for stuff. And they're probably thinking, oh no, he just needs to get a job. Come on. Like, you know, go back to uni, whatever. No, I'm going to start charity. I'm going to go and climb mountains. But they never did that. You know, they always back me, which has, which has been amazing. How much did that mean to you?

A huge, a huge amount. And I actually don't really know any different. They've always done that from a young age. And I appreciate it now more that I'm older and I know more people and I see the way other, you know, hear about the other way kids were brought up and especially being in sport as well. Sometimes you have a parent who's obsessed with making that child a champion sports person and this can happen in many fields. And sometimes a kid doesn't want to be that.

And I know, I actually know a lot of professional rugby players who don't really enjoy rugby, which is the weird thing about sport because it's a lot of. It's one of the only things that if you're good at from young age, people like you have to do that. Because if you don't, it's almost sort of, you know, shoving it back in their face because they don't have the ability to do it. So, you know, you've got someone, you know, not so in a name, but you've got someone running around a pitcher 25 years old,

getting injured. Yes, they're playing professional sport. But then they have a bad game and they're getting slated on social media or by the fans or the press or they're getting injuries or another contract doesn't come around, or they're having to move their family around the country. And they're just thinking, all they ever wanted to do is, play the cello. You know, do not mean? And there's a lot of mental health problems in sport for that

reason and other reasons. But yeah. It's a lot of pressure on kids, isn't it? The number of hours when you were talking about swimming and having to do that and not really enjoying it. Yeah. Absolutely crazy. So you'd had these shoulder injuries. You were, you built yourself up 10 years of like getting yourself back up to the top. Where were you and who you playing for? So I was at that point, I'd played in the Premiership for eight years, Bath and London Welsh and Wasps, and then I signed in Wales. So I went over and played for the Dragons, which is based in Newport and Gwent, the valleys, sort of the mining valleys, which is interesting when you speak like me as an well-spoken English person from a public school going to the valleys where they're brought up to hate people like me. So I was probably trying to disguise my accent for quite a long time. But then, no, after a couple of weeks,

the rugby's a great leveler, sport is you take the field with each other, you've got each other's back, you put your body on the line for each other, and some of them are now my best mates. And in fact, we've still got our place in Cardiff. I'm going there this afternoon. I love Wales, I love Welsh people, even though sometimes they probably don't like English people as much,

but they're great. And I was, so I was loving my rugby after two years there, and we were playing in a league where you got to go, every weekend, you got to go to Dublin, to Edinburgh, to Italy. Every other weekend was like a standard. because you go away for the weekend. You stay overnight.

The other team take you out. And I think by that point in my career, because of injuries and various other things, I just relaxed into the fact that I wasn't probably going to play international rugby for England. And then I was just enjoying it. And as a result of that, I was playing better. Isn't that funny?

Yeah, yeah. Just relaxing into it, enjoying it more. And I started playing better as a result of that. So I was 28, probably had another five or six years. The plan was to play in Wales for a few more years and then go to France or Japan or like go and pick up some at the end of career, just a different life experience. But I hadn't really considered my career ending. And this is what a lot of sports people are guilty of is being too scared to look beyond the sport. Because at the end of the day, you know, professional sports ends a relatively early time in your life.

You're going to need another career. Yes. So I'm not preparing for that. It's dangerous because with sport you can get injured at any point. obviously and it can just get you know cut dead. Can we just talk about Lois quickly because she's sort of running alongside you, your relationship with her as sort of happening at the same time during your 20s basically. Can you just talk me through how you met Lois?

Yeah, so we met I was 20, Lois was 18 and I was playing for Bath Academy. So my first couple of years out of school and she was at Bath University. She was one of the netballers. It was the classic rugby player netballer. I mean, you know, we met at a fancy dress party where one of my rugby friends was going out with one of the netball friends. And it was what you want to be when you grow up. And I was just... I was a fireman.

And she was a ballerina. Amazing. Yeah. Neither of which have come to light. I still kind of want to be a fireman at some point. But, yeah, and we just got on really well that night and actually ended with... But one of the best things about Lois is she's so down to her. Like she's just so normal.

I mean normal is probably the wrong word. She's a lot of fun and all of those things. But it ended in a cab shop at like 3am. And I bought her at Donna Cabab and the look on her face, she was like, oh, I love Dona Cababs. And I was like, I'm going to marry. That's my girl. That's my girl.

So we've been together for a long time since we were kids, really. And obviously she's been such an important part of my life and everything that's happened. I mean, it's quite, it's quite something to be playing professional rugby. She's at Bath University. It's kind of amazing that you managed to stay together through all of that, isn't it? Yeah. What do you think pre-accident was the magic that kept you together?

Well, actually, we were together for about six months. Then I signed, because I had my shoulder injuries, I re-signed up north. And she still had two years of uni left or a year of uni left. So we were like, well, let's just knock it on the head. It's not going to work. It's been fun, thanks. Yeah. Maybe we'll meet again one day.

and then we found like the next week she was coming up on the train and I was going down to bath and we couldn't stop seeing each other basically so it wasn't intended as such you know I was a young rugby player I was enjoying myself and she was at union she was enjoying herself but we just couldn't keep ourselves away from each other and then I ended up signing the next year down in London and she finished uni and she came and moved in with me then yeah so you two are together you're 28 and you are relaxing into playing better and better rugby. We're at 2017, is it? Yeah.

So tell me what happened. Where were you? Yeah. So I had, in November of 2016, we'd been playing in Ireland up in against Ulster. And I dislocated my shoulder again. I had that hadn't happened since I was like 19. But it's okay. You know, it's a six months recovery.

I know, you say it's okay. you're basically getting your shoulders is quite a big thing but in rugby it's you know injuries are relatively normal and it was like okay six months time

it'll be the next season I've just re-signed a new two-year contract I'll just rehab it'll all be fine and then it was during the recovery from that operation it was April

2017 I obviously wasn't playing at a weekend off I went back to my parents house and bath and it was the first hot day of the year so we went around

to our family friend's house I'd been there before it was my parents friend and we had a barbecue you and after lunch and I just about got back to the point where I was going to start training again and I took my I just after lunch went down to their pool and they had a feature pool not you know it was kind of something not a rectangular yeah yeah something you'd probably expect in Hollywood Hills night in sunset but and I just went down wasn't concentrating

took my t-shirt off and dived in where this waterfall that come off this rock feature hit the water and I jumped and I dived in steeply and thinking it was eight, nine feet deep. I couldn't really see the bottom because of the water fall, but it turned out to only be three feet deep. And back then I was a lot heavier than I am now. You know, it was, I was about 18 stone and that went straight through the top of my head. And I didn't, I didn't lose consciousness at the time, which I was surprised about because I realized how hard I'd hit my head. And I was So I thought, okay, I'll just, that was really hard, but I'm okay, I'll just stand up, check I'm not bleeding in their pool, basically. And it was when I tried to stand up that sort of I realized something was wrong because I couldn't move.

So I was lying there sort of looking at the surface. First of all, confused, because like you should be able to move. And this is all happening in like fractions of a second, but time just slowed right down. And I was like, okay, what's going on? I need to move. And then all of a sudden, that mindset shifted to, oh shit, I'm going to drown. Not a pool is not a good place to lose mobility. And fortunately, my dad was there and one of my friends, and they jumped into the pool, came over, pull me to the surface.

And this is the first time where I got lucky, it's the book. My dad's a retired GP, so he was a doctor. And he knew straight away there must be something wrong with my head or neck. So they held my head and floated me to the edge of the pool. And there was some other family friends there, this amazing woman called Diane, who held my head whilst my dad tried to move bits of my body. And I'd lost all movement and sensation from below the neck. And what happened is I'd hit my head so hard on the top that the C6 and C7 vertebrae,

which the two at the bottom of your neck, the ones that help you look down and up, which I can't do very well now because there's a lot of metal in there. they had dislocated and the disc in between it had exploded and some of those shards of disc lodged into my spinal cord so it was a really really serious neck break and obviously I didn't know that happened at that point I just knew I'd lost all movement sensation and often and you'd I would have done this to one of my friends if it happened you'd pull someone up the pool straight away it'd be like something's wrong get them out of the pool but a lot of um a lot of injuries caused after

these sort of fractured dislocations had done in the handling of the person afterwards. So he was really fortunate that my dad said, let's just float him here. And Diane was holding my head, and we waited 45 minutes for the ambulance to come. They came, floated the spinal board underneath me, and then took six people to lift me out the pool

because I was so heavy back then and I was off to hospital. So it all happened. It was all a bit of a blur. Like I was in shock, but I can remember it quite vividly now. Can you tell me what was going through your mind in those 45 minutes and what was your dad like? What was he going through?

Because as a parent, I just can't imagine where he must have been at. Yeah. So in my mind, I think obviously shock was in play. I think I knew it was very serious, obviously, but I'd been injured quite a lot. But at that point, I was like, they get me to the hospital. they'll sort it out. That's what always happened. You know, because rugby's a silly sport,

I'd already had seven general anesthetics before to have shoulder operations, knee, ankle, all these sorts of things. I was like, they'll fix me, you know, in hindsight. But I think deep down I knew that it was probably more than that. Did you? That's really interesting. Yeah.

That you have one consciousness that is keeping your morale going. Yeah. But there's a no-e- inside you, something saying. Yeah. Yeah, and it's almost like that. Part of your brain is protecting you.

Yes. Because in critical situations, there's no use to thinking, you know, the worst case scenarios. In the actual survival situation, I've been in two now. That was one, and there was another one on a mountain a couple of years ago. Your brain is amazing. It will just go, well, that's not useful. What do we do to get you through this survival situation? situation. You know, we're surprisingly hard to kill as human beings, you know. And I think if you're

consciously in one of those situations where it is life or death, we've seen people do it. You hear people doing unbelievable things, you know, in those situations. And I think, you know, wasn't an unbelievable thing I did. But my brain was probably protecting me. And that's not useful. What do we do next? I think what's quite interesting is that, you know, physically, obviously you are quite hard to kill. Like you've had all of those injuries, you've had the shoulder injuries, you've had seven general anesthetics before you're even 28, you had another life and death experience later in life. But actually the thing that's much, much easier to kill

is your mental, like, you know, positivity, your ability to put a positive spin on it. And like that, at that moment, you were kind of looking after that. You're like, okay, okay, well, we'll park the, I've got a feeling I'm. might be paralyzed, but what we're going to focus on now. Yeah. But in that moment, there's a lot of adrenaline.

It's like survival mode. There's chemicals rushing around your body, which aren't allowing you to think deeply about your situation. That comes later when you've got time. Right. And the depression and the deep, dark thoughts happened after, you know, after that critical moment, that happened in recovery, you know, the first weeks after contemplating the rest of your life.

So will you talk me through the ambulance? its journey because that in itself was incredibly eventful and you weren't quite aware of how eventful it had been. Yeah. So, you know, to go back to my dad, really, he's very stoic Yorkshireman. He's a doctor. He's seen it all before and I could see in his eyes. He was scared, nervous. But he went into like dealing mode. He was like, let's do this, let's do that. And Diane was, you know, whispering my ear and like keeping me calm. But he, since that day, he's not even been able to read the book. He's not been able to watch the film. And, you know, so he just puts it in a box, puts it away. So there was a lot of trauma there. He hasn't processed it.

No, and that's the way I think he's always dealt with stuff and had to deal with stuff. And he speaks about that. How do you feel about that? Do you worry about that for him? I actually don't because I think people process things in different ways. And he has lived this incredible life and has had to be resilient and so many times throughout his life, starting from being born with a club foot and then being out of place at uni because he was from a different background.

But he's carried on doing it and been an amazing dad throughout, you know, and it is a generally positive person. And he says the way I deal with some stuff that's not worth dealing with for him is he locks it in a little box in his head and, you know, throws away the key. And that's what he's done with this.

And that shows that him telling me that it completely contradicts what you'd think of him or how he acted in that moment. Right. But he was operating, you know, like he was dealing with the situation, but it was obviously very traumatic, more traumatic than he was letting us know. But again, panicking, looking upset, was not going to be, was not going to help the situation. So he was going through the trauma and the adrenaline as much as I was, maybe even more, you know, as a parent with your child's, having this happened, you know.

Ed. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I mean, what a, what? Yeah. I mean, there's been, I can, so many people along the way, you know, thank God for them.

You know, there's people who have, you know, my support network, and there's been individuals that have been so formative in my recovery, psychologically as well as physically. And that was the first one, him and Diane, the lady who was holding my head, who was amazing, keeping me calm. We spoke to her about it. Yeah. Have you?

I've seen her. met her since, yeah. And can she talk about it? Does it help her to talk? But again, it was really traumatic for her as well. But she can talk about it. We've spoken about it. And everyone's sort of recollection of that moment is slightly different. Yeah, it's really that. And when distance comes, you know, like the way I was perceiving them different. It's different to my dad, it's different to Diane, but I just know that without them there, obviously I would have drowned. But also it could have been a very different story because even despite how well I was cared for in that moment of trauma in the ambulance on the way to hospital, what I thought was a 15 minute journey and I'm following

it in my mind. I can know where I am was trying to distract myself. It actually, my parents were waiting at the other end. So the next thing I knew, I was like, I opened my eyes and I was in A&E and I thought, okay, well, I'm here, great, 15 minutes. There are a lot of doctors and stuff thrushing around and a lot of people with clipboards and that's when it starts to go okay this is serious because you know normally there's not this many people interested but what had happened is and a year I only found this out a year later when my parents thought I could hear it that that that ambulance journey actually took two and a half hours because the ambulance had to pull over to resuscitate me three times pumping me full of adrenaline so you actually died yeah on that

journey three times and that's what my dad knew that's what the fear in his eyes were in the pool, he knew because of the trauma and his medical background, until I'm in the operating theatre, there's a chance I could die at any point because of that level of trauma to your spinal cord, going to cardiac arrest, whatever it might be. And so he said he couldn't relax until I went into the operating theatre. And because he knew that once you're rigged up to the machines, they'll keep you alive. I'm sorry, Ed, there's just so much I want to unpick with you, but I want to talk to you about dying. Yeah. What's it like? What happened?

Did you see anything? No, I didn't. I didn't. I felt sleepy. I felt relaxed. You weren't scared? The moment of like, no, I didn't feel like I was dying. I just felt like I was going to sleep.

Because I remember the nurse that was in the paramedic that was in the ambulance. I was like, I'm just going to shut my eyes for a bit. I'm drinking the tight. Don't do that. Don't do that. Stay awake. Keep talking to me. not trying to not too, too rush.

I was like, I was fine. I know we're only 15 minutes where I just have a nap. And then I just sort of slubbed, you know, and the next thing I knew, I woke up in terms of care. During that period of not really being aware what's going on, I'd been going in and out of consciousness, my heart had been stopping, and it'd be pumperable with adrenaline.

But for me, it was just kind of opening my eyes in my knee. What I find interesting about that, a concept, or it's not a concept, it's the fact. What I find interesting about what you went through is that it's not knowing that you were dying, made dying peaceful. I wonder if that was... You had no concept that the world was ending. Yeah.

You didn't have any flashing before. Your eyes, no... No pearly gates. No pearly gates? No, nothing. No last, like, thoughts of family or... No, and I think you're right. I think it's because I had no concept.

You weren't leaving anyone behind? No. My dad knew there was a chance I was going to die. I didn't. I was thinking I'll get to hospital. It'll be okay. And I've actually been in that situation again when on the mountain. Definitely want to talk to you about that. But it makes you realize actually that, see what the comforting thing about,

and we'll get on to the mountain thing. The comforting thing for me being on the side of the mountain and knowing if you close your eyes, you're not going to wake up is quite peaceful, those last moments. You know you have to keep yourself awake, but you're like, do you know what, I'll just have a rest, I'll have a nap, and then it'll be okay. So that's probably a lot of the way that people on the side of mountains have, you know,

sometimes it's traumatic avalanche and stuff. But sometimes that moment of death is actually, I'm just going to close my eyes and have a little nap, but I'll wake up, but then they don't. So then there isn't that fear attached to it. I find that really comforting. I think for anybody watching or listening to this who really love someone and they've been with them as they go

that that is a really nice thing to know that sometimes you can just feel like you're going to speak yeah yeah that's definitely how it felt for me and you're right and I think it is a comforting thought and it's not always the case obviously because if you really if you're being forced into a situation where you're going to die and you don't want to

and you're fighting it yeah But people who like make peace with it and they accept whatever the situation is, then the actual process is very relaxing. Yes. It's really interesting that. How do you feel about dying now? I'm not as scared of it as I was. And I don't think I'd really thought about it much before my accident.

You know, you're young and full of life and you're getting on with things. But actually at 23, I lost. my best mate. And that was the second big trauma of my life. And probably to this day the biggest trauma of my life. How did you lose him? He ended up, he was a professional cricketer and he got hit by a train walking across a live line in London. They think it electrified to him and knocked him out and then the train hits him. So it was pretty. And he was a guy who was in my boarding room at school when I first went there when I felt insecure and scared as a youngster and we became best friends and we both played rugby and cricket together and he went off and played professional

cricket, I played professional rugby and that was, that gave me, that was the first time I really thought about death and, you know, maybe we're not, you know, going to be here forever. And since then it's obviously been reinforced by actually going through processes myself where I've had to contemplate my mortality and it had you'd have thought it would make you. you more risk averse. And I think my mum would hope it made me more risk averse. But actually, all it's done for me is give me more of a lust for life. Yes.

It's made me more grateful for being alive in the first place. But it's made me want to live, you know, really live, take more chances, follow my gut more, appreciate what I'm doing. But I don't want to die. In fact, I want to die less now than I did before probably because I love my life that I've grown and built. But for me, what's the point in living 100 years if you haven't really lived, you know, a day or 10 days? I'd rather live 20 years and live every day. You're not like it's your last because obviously you live it like it's last.

I'd do very different things. And I'd probably end up dead at the end of them anyway. But it's been a gift, not many people. And I know that you've been there as well. Like get the, this is going to sound weird, the gift of having to genuinely contemplate their own mortality. And if you come through the other side of that, it's really formative in the way you then approach the rest of your life. And I'm not, you know, recommending people wish for a brain tumor or dive in the wrong end of a swimming pool or try and go near death experiences.

But if it does happen and you are going through that, know that if you come through that psychologically, you will be a stronger person, a more grateful person, a more positive person than if you'd never gone through in the first place. I've been thinking about the power of community lately, thanks to our favourite creative tool and sponsor Adobe Express. You might know it as the quick and easy create anything app from Adobe, but it's also a really buzzing creative network. So the other day, I couldn't get our Begin Again logo to look how I wanted in a dock.

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More like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. You say, I love my life. I do love my life, yeah. I mean, it's not all, you know, it's not all roses and it's, you know, life's a lot more difficult for me now on paper with all of the, you know, I still live with a disability and everything that goes along with that. But the way my mind has shifted, this gift that I've been given from having to be wiped back, the slate wipe clean and really had to discover who I am, what I really want in life, what am I passionate about. And the, the doors that have closed, but the amazing doors that have opened and the people I've met and the people I've met, adventures I go on. But more the fact it's given me the confidence to take chances, take leaps

of faith, like to do things, to try things I would never have thought I was capable of before or would have the confidence to even give a go. And that's kind of the message that I want to say to people, like most of the things that I do now, I would never have been able to, I would never have thought I was capable of doing. The climbing the mountains, despite having spinal cordial, even climbing some of the mountains I climb now, without a spinal cordinger, I wouldn't have thought I could be able to. speaking in public that then, well, I used to be a really nervous, you know, introverted kids. I was going to say that about you presenting on television. Yeah, exactly.

And like that has just come from going life could end tomorrow. Let's just take a chance. Give it a go. So you speak in front of more people and a few more people. The next thing you know there's a camera in your face. And then the next thing, you know, you're presenting the Paralympics. You're like, how did that happen? It could have always happened.

Nervous Ed could have, the child, nervous Ed, could have become that person because it must have always been there but the constraints that I put on myself because of what society told me I should be like or what I thought I was like

based on my experiences or whatever it might have been had said that's not an option I'm not even going to try I'm going to follow the path that I'm supposed to follow so this has definitely given me an understanding

that there is more out there that you can do than you ever thought and what's the worst that can happen by giving it a go I think the most miraculous example of that was of you. You got rushed into surgery when you got to hospital. And there was an amazing neurosurgeon who operated on you.

Would you like to say his name? Yeah, Mr. Neil Brewer. Yeah, we should. We should bigger. Yeah, for sure. And he operated on you straight away. But then you were left basically like the worst, the category A, weren't you?

Yeah, yeah, category A, you're A. So I woke up after a seven-hour operation, which, you know, you've been there. You don't, you're not necessarily going to wake up from that operation. And that's something you have to make peace with. The differences, which I'm quite interested, is in terms of the difference between us, you know, our journeys in that situation was I didn't have a choice.

You know, I was on this very quick, like we need to save his life. You need to go to the operation. This is happening whether you like it. Yes, I did elective surgery. You had an elective surgery, which I'd love to know the... Let's have lunch. Yeah, okay. Yeah, with Lewis and Michael, great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this was always kind of happening to me, and I remember Neil Brewer, who, I was very fortunate. I was in the UK, and I was more than that, I was next to Southmead Hospital, which was a leading neurological hospital, and Mr. Neil Brewer, an unbelievable surgeon, which happened to be on a call on a Saturday night because he'd just got back from holiday in the Maldives it turns out. He wouldn't normally be on call on a Saturday night. So it's like, welcome back. But he said to me before I went under, you know, we might not change to be

able to change anything. We might. But there is a real chance you won't wake up from this operation. And I've been told that before because you're always told that when you go into general anaesthetic. This is a one a million chance that you might be allergic to it. But this was because of the surgery. It was the first time I was like, okay. Can I ask you something very quickly. How long did you have to process that? When did they tell you that and when did they operate? And what did you go through processing and might not make it? I had all of like two minutes. Oh, okay. So I was going into the third like this was I was being rushed. They took it from the R-EH to Southmead under blue lights. It was like if we don't get this

operation quickly, he could die. So it was like, this is happening. And this is what's going to be. You might not make it. Good sleep. But he still said to me, I said one of the strange, this show's shock was still there. I said one of the strangest things that he'd been told on the operating table.

It was like, I said, don't worry, just give it your best shot. Wait, can I tell you something, Ed? Yeah. Do you say the same thing? I really just, it's so nice talking to you. So, I knew when I went into my operation, like the best shot was going to be

if I helped everybody in that room, anesthetist, everybody nurses, Kevin, my surgeon, to be the best they could be. So I was like happy. I was like, you guys, you do your thing. Like, I totally believe in all of you. I'm not real like, this is nice. I thought you don't want to operate on someone going,

please help me live. I've got three kids. I love my life. Like, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to not have time with the people I love more than anything. Please, please. I thought, I don't want to put that kind of stress on someone who's trying to do something on your spinal, like, you know, it's difficult.

It's really hard. But I love this idea that you empowered people. Like, this is just the best. It's the best mindset ever, like go in, empower the team to do the best job they can on you. And that's exactly. what I was like, you go do your best job and what will be will be I let go of the outcome.

That's amazing, you're like 28. Yeah. If you skip forward to my recovery, so there's a long period of recovery that I'm still on and you never know when it would stop and it didn't look like I was going to get back on my feet for a long time and all of these things. I was conscious of making that, exactly that,

motivating the physios and motivating the nurses around. Believe me. But the problem that caused was what was really going on in my mind at night and in those situations. I'd created this divide between who Ed was to the outside world because I'm trying to motivate people for who I really was inside and, you know, thinking I don't want to be here anymore and all of these thoughts that had happened at night. So that creating that divide is that's for functional outcomes, you know.

It's great. Come on. Do your best. and that's the right way to be. And actually, over time, this part... They meet. So you become how you interact with the world, you know, and it's like mental forging.

But there's a period there which is... Mental forging? Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Sorry, Carrie. So, but there's a period where there was this gap and that was a really hard place for me to be.

Because you weren't being your authentic self? Yeah, I was trying to protect the people around me. Right. Without. And also, I think, So after a week of being in intensive care, they gave me my Asia results, which is they do American spinal injury assessment,

Pimprix, temperature checks, and it's the only way they can give you an outcome on your neurology because they can't just scan you and say, this is what's working, they need to see what comes back. And I was category Asia A1, and nothing had returned. I could shrug my shoulder and that was it.

And the surgeon came in and said, So wait, your whole body, you could shrug your shoulder. that was it. Yeah. You couldn't move anything else. No. And I'd lost bodily functions, you know, so I couldn't go to the toilet for myself. I couldn't even breathe for myself properly because all of the muscles around your rib cage and diaphragm stopped working too.

Oh, wow. God, of course. And, you know, you're in these situations where you're lying on your back in night and a bit of saliva goes down your throat and you normally just clear it out. You can't do that. So you feel like you're drowning. I had to learn to breathe through my nose in those situations. But I can't press the call button because I can't move my hand. You just have to make noises until the nurse comes in. It was really, really dark for like a week.

And then obviously in the day, your friends come back in in the morning, your partners and stuff. And then you put this brave face on again. It's like, I'm doing okay, guys, but at night you're going through this. What do you, how do you, how, what were you thinking about at night? How did you get through it? I mean, that's so dark. And you, you know, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I counted the roof tiles many times. There's 147 roof tiles in there. And sometimes it was about trying to distract yourself rather than this was the first time I'd had thoughts like this in my life. I'd been quite fortunate up to that point. I'd had some traumas, but, you know, with injuries

and then with Tom dying and, you know, I've been in a bad head space, but never like anything like this, sort of existential crisis, if you like. And again, going back to the rugby thing, my identity had been stripped. I was known for being this physical person. And by this point, I knew I was never going to play, but I could be, you know, let alone

walk or whatever it might be. And they told me, so it was half distraction and, you know, Alexa becomes your best friend because you can't move. So it was quite funny in intensive care, actually. The nurses, I got known on the ward because most people are in comas in intensive care. So I'm one of the awake people. And I'm constant, I got obsessed with Fleetwood Mac rumors out. album and Bob Marley and I just used to go Alexa play people Mac so I'd be blasting this music

out wait wait which is your favourite track oh um songbird probably yeah yeah yeah um so do you know it's really weird I didn't really listen to pleading mat before apart from you know what made you want to listen to us so we found a photo a year and a half later and at the lunch where before I dived in the pool, I'm holding a signed Fleetwood Mac Rubber's album that the owners had and I was looking at it. And I died in the pool and broke up obsessed with Fleetwood Mac

to the point where when I discharged myself from hospital, two weeks later, me and Lois flew to New York in my wheelchair, still attached to watch Fleetwood Mac. Yeah. Do you think that's like a neural pathway thing? Yeah, must be. Wow, that is like... Yeah, you know, you hear,

I've heard of someone waking up and speaking a different language. It's not quite as extreme as that, but, you know, must be a really big trauma that's cemented something. It's mad that you had this kind of thought of like holding this album and suddenly it becomes your... So you're doing Alexa. I'm distracting myself with that, doing breathwork stuff, but really my mindset. The main distraction is having other people in the room, like your support network. So when people came in during the day, it would be... And it was quite amazing.

It's like witnessing your own death. It was quite reassuring that people were coming. So it's like you don't get to see your funeral. But I had friends coming in from like all over Europe, like from different rugby clubs and some strangers almost and wanting to come and the amazing outpouring messages. And wait, when you say it's like witnessing your own funeral, is this because you're kind of thinking,

oh, you're all thinking that. Does anyone actually lie me and is anyone going to turn up to my funeral? Right. So it was quite reassuring that because it's almost like that happens, that I started to, and we'll never take for granted again, how amazing my friendship network is and my family. Because not everyone has that. You know, I spent four months on a spinal unit

and there were people who didn't have any visitors. You just can't get your head around it. Oh, my God. Yeah. You are the Ed who didn't feel confident, who didn't really have friends. And at the time you most needed it, you are overwhelmed with people.

Yeah. Is that great. Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing. And there were people. And there were people with no one. Yeah. I mean, outcomes for people with no one versus you.

Massive. They must be different. Massive. We spoke before about nature and nurture. So with the charity that I now, we work with a lot of people who have been through trauma, younger adults. M to M to M. M to M, yeah. And one of the biggest correlators, most obvious correlators to them getting to, not necessarily a physical recovery,

but that is tied up tied into a psychological mindset. But the nature of the, you can't outwork a prognosis if the prognosis is definitive. So if I had a complete spinal cord injury, but that's not what we're healing. We're getting someone,

it doesn't matter what your physical situation is. We're getting someone back to a positive headspace where they're excited about life. And I've got friends who are complete quadriplegic who live amazing lives, you know. But one of the biggest correlators is how strong the sport network is. You know, do they have strong relationships?

Do they have a good friendship group? What's their family situation like? Those people always bounce back quicker and it's always a tougher battle if someone doesn't have those things. And my mum was there almost every day. Yeah. Like she was incredible.

In fact, on the spinal unit, everyone else used to look forward to my mum coming in because she'd normally walk into the hospital bags full of M&S stuff and feed the whole ward. She's that kind of type of mum. Love her. Yeah, yeah.

She's great. But my friends coming in was also good because dark humour has been like a really important healing tool. Yeah. And that's just the way I am. And that's the way the rugby world is and lots of other worlds are. And one of my friends came in and I was two days after post-accident. Can't move.

Chubes in my nose, everything. I'm having to look through these right-angle glasses to see. He came in and just chucked three juggling balls on my chest. It was like, well, if you're going to be in a while, you might as well do something. And that was the first time I laughed since my accident. And some of the stuff they've done since we've done together has been, you know, some of it's probably not repeatable. But it's been a really big tool. Because I think if you can laugh at a situation, you can immediately steal its seriousness from it.

And it's not being insensitive, you know, and some people obviously wouldn't react to that the right way. But it's funny working on the Paralympics, actually, you'll often find most people who have been through serious trauma and have got to a positive headspace again. Some of the conversations that happened, you know, amongst Paralympians, you'd get canceled. It's such a relief, though, isn't it? It's like, oh, God, at last I can just talk about it and not see people going, oh, my God, oh, I think when you aren't, if you, when you don't have a disability, you obviously can't make light of it, but it must be lovely being around. Yeah.

Well, you don't want to make light of it. No, no, no, no. If you don't have any kind of disability, you wouldn't want to make, but it's a very, but unless you are best, best friends, my best friend and I are, verging on abusive to each other. It's so funny. And my partner and I are very funny. We can do that.

But you have to love somebody in order to be able to do that. So it's a great sign of it. And when somebody, I'm just thinking about the three balls landing on your chest, about how at night when you're having those really dark moments, you'd be able to think back to that and have a giggle to yourself. Yeah. You know, it's a memory that you can go out. That was.

Yeah. definitely. So you would deliberately distract yourself by engaging with everyone, make, you know, having a laugh and even though you can't move in this very serious situation. And some people, I heard you mentioned before about surrounding yourself with people that are, what was the term, it was like coolers, not heaters. Oh, radiators, not drains. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the people in that, you know, the people that were, some people would come in and, because it was quite visibly shocking, you know, neck brace, tubes, machines.

I see. So, yes, what I think your meaning is when I was talking about people who are fanning the fear, like, who go, oh, you've got to breathe you. Oh, no, that's terrible. And you go, I don't want you to do that. I just want you to go, oh, Brach him, you're going to be fine. Yeah, we know it's serious. Let's just have a laugh. You know, treat me normally. You know, we can't do anything about that. So let's just, and unfortunately, a lot of my friends are like that. But there were obviously some people who came in the head headlights as well. But not on the whole, people started treat me normally but that was the way for them to do that was for me to be outwardly okay which is the gap which is the gap um and that gap started to close once i actually started to have

rehab to focus on but after seven days i was told that's it you know the level of your injury means you're not you're not going to walk again or most likely not going to walk and they never say definitively but that's what you can expect we're hoping you get some use of your arms back so that you can be independent and um well And then they say that to you. What did you hear? I knew that was going to be delivered because they'd done all the age tests and nothing had recovered. So at the time, I thought I had a complete injury.

And it was like getting punched in the stomach. It was like getting winded because it was, I think what we'd all been fearing, someone had actually verbalised it. It wasn't a shock news. It wasn't like, you know, I think I'm fine and all of a sudden you find out you've got cancer or you've got tumour. It was like, okay, I already know my self. situation but someone said it out loud and it's real and it's tangible and my mum and wife were you know burst into tears in the room and i reacted in quite a funny way because it was actually the word independence that really shook so you so you how do you mean it shook you like

well in a positive way it made me realize that this wasn't just about me and up until that point I had been thinking, life's not fair. What have I done to deserve this, you know, poor me sort of situation, you know, inwardly. These are the dark thoughts at night. And now I realise that because of the situation, if I'm not independent, this is going to affect other people. And this is about my wife, my mum. In fact, at this point, I was telling Lois to leave me already. So that was interesting.

Were you? But yeah. But anyone who was going to be caring for me. and I knew in myself at that point because of the prognosis that actually that probably was going to be the case I probably would need care because I've been told that I was hoping to get some independence back. I just wanted to have enough so I could use a wheelchair

and clean myself and feed myself. But I knew that in six months' time, if I'd kept lying there feeling sorry for myself and not done what I can to recover and now it was affecting not just my life for other people's lives, I wouldn't be able to put my look at myself in the mirror and that word independence kicked me on and gave me the motivation to really start trying to move something.

Up until that point, I've been doing a bit of rehab, but most of the time I was just in no man's land, in shock, waiting for some recovery. It was never going to come. Yeah, it'd only been a week. But after that, he left and I was like, right, I'm going to try and do everything I can to move. And if it happens, unbelievable. If it doesn't happen, at least I'm going to be able to live with myself when I'm having to be cared for. So when nothing's working, how do you think about moving? How do you do that?

Well, it's exactly that. You've just got to use visualization. And you close your eyes and you imagine moving your hands and moving your feet and moving your toes. You open your eyes, nothing's happening. Often you're moving them in your head and it feels like they're moving. Wow. But then nothing happens when you're opening your eyes. And it's so tiring, even though you haven't moved a muscle, you do an hour and then I'm passing out for an hour.

like even though I haven't moved once because you're putting so much focus in energy. And in fact, that was the first time I realized how hard I'd push myself in my life before that was not even close. You know, I'd been a professional sports person. I'd run the fitness test until I'd thrown up. I'd done all of these things. But when you're backs against the wall and there's independence on the line, the amount of energy and focus I put into that was beyond anything that I'd been able to do before. Wow.

So that's another reframe for me and that are learning from it now that I take into later life it's like, yeah, you think you're at your limit but you're nowhere near your limit, you know? That's incredible, isn't it? Yeah. When we think we can't do anymore

and then you can. Yeah. Well, you know, it's the old adage, it's not a nice one to think about, but if, you know, you fall off a running machine because you run so hard, if someone put a gun against your head and said, do it again, you probably could.

Yeah. But if someone asked you to do it again, you'd be... No way. No way. Yeah. Yeah. But so that, that, that was, yeah, me trying to get to that point of trying to move something.

But then I was waking up, falling asleep, waking up. And after 36 hours, naturally, you're like, it's not going to happen. But I need to keep trying, but it's not going to happen. And then just one moment, I opened my eyes. This is only, you know, a day after they told me I was never walking. I opened my eyes and my toe was wiggling when I was telling it to wiggled. And I just remember closing my eyes and going. And it was going, because I couldn't feel.

my toes but it was moving and I was sending the signal I thought okay so spasm it's a spasm did it again again again and then I was just like mom but she's in the corridor I was like oh my god yeah I was like mom get in it I was like look at my toe and it's it's interesting to think how like the biggest moment in your life becomes a wiggling toe you know from everything that's gone on before but it was because it meant that there was a connection past the level of my injury which I was told there was and I had some hope. Not that I'd be walking again, but there was a point to putting in the effort

to see how much I could recover. And it was just that waving toe that was the turning point for everything else. And I'd say at this point that Mr. Neil Brewer, the consultants, they were right to say, give me the prognosis I was given because it was based on fact. My age results are how they give you your results.

What had actually happened is, shot, if you traumatise your spinal cord or your brain, it'll go into shock and normally shuts down for 48, 72 hours. And then it reveals itself. That's why they do the test for a week. My trauma was so big. My spinal shock ended up lasting for nine days. Right. So even at seven days, it looked like I had a complete injury, but actually I was still in spinal shot. Right. So it was the right prognosis to give. But if I hadn't had that motivation from my support now, but wanting to do it from other people, stopping thinking about myself and thinking, thinking about others to give me enough drive.

If I hadn't been trying to move something, it could have completely passed me by. So I could have still been in that situation. I had to be putting the effort in. And that's where, again, I consider myself fortunate that I have this amazing, poor now what to get better for. Because like we spoke to before, if you don't have a life to get back to or something to motivate you, you know, people with young kids always more motivated to get better, all of these sorts of things.

You've got to play your part in this as well. if you want to see change, you've got to action it too as well as having that support. So really fortunate to have that. And then we just set off on this journey in hospital just trying to see what we could get back, you know, bending the rules and doing all sorts of stuff and making what turned out to be a relatively unheard of recovery given the level of injury to the point where I was asked to go in and speak at hospitals about what we've been doing. And I feel incredibly fortunate to be where I am today because

my bar got moved from winning man-of-the-match awards being a professional role player to wiggling my toe. And I had to come to terms of the fact I'd accepted I'm going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, I just want to be independent. So now everything after that has been a bonus. Right. So the fact that I can drive here and come and speak to you,

even though I limp around everywhere, the fact that I can brush my own teeth, the fact that I can feed myself, I had to actually contemplate, never been able to do that again. They all make me happier. Yes. So when your bars lowered and you start to appreciate all the things that you take for granted, it's a lot easier to be in a more positive mood on a day-to-day basis.

But the hard thing is, I mean, often it's difficult to, and I was the same as before, you don't appreciate things until they're taken away or until you have to contemplate them being taken away. I had a real moment of that the other day on the tube. Looked at everybody and everybody looked really unhappy. Yeah. And I wanted to kind of go, guys, guys! We're alive.

We're alive. Yeah. It's quite funny. I thought, no, it'd just be the loony on the train. I smile to myself a lot. Like, I just walk around smiling to myself or listening to music. And I'm like, oh, ah! And do you feel that's, like, more powerful now?

Yeah, oh, yeah. I mean, I look at everything. The world looks so beautiful. Yeah. The buildings are gorgeous. Like, the iron railings. I was like, I've never seen those before. Like, what is going on?

I thought it was something wrong with my brain. But other people that have experienced, what I've experienced have told me this is normal. Yeah. This is just you are realizing that there is beauty everywhere, but your life was so busy. Yeah. You never saw it. Yeah. And it's almost even more depressing when you do realize that.

You realize how trapped people are in the, you know, the rat racing. Is it all right to talk about Lewis and you at this point? Yeah, yeah, of course, yeah. that obviously in the documentary that you made, she's kind of amazing, I love her. And she's obviously going on her own journey next to you. But you mentioned earlier that you said at this point I was telling her to leave me. How hard was that for you?

Because you love, I know I can see she's your person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What was going through your mind then? It was, I was, that was one of the things I was most scared of, but at the same time I felt, I was feeling really guilty at that point of what I, of what I've done to all of these people around me. So you felt guilty about what you'd done?

Yeah. That's how you perceived it like I've done a bad thing. Yeah, I was thinking, how have I been so stupid to dive into the wrong end of a single ball, and look how it's impacted everyone. and that was enough of a that was powerful enough for me to say to Lois like you don't deserve this, you should leave

and of course she told me to shut up which was deep down what I was hoping she was going to say but I needed to say it because I was actually probably as much looking for an answer from her rather than just worried about that might happen I wanted the reassurance that she wouldn't but obviously there's a big risk there

because she might have gone. Yeah. Okay. Oh, thanks. Yeah, yeah. Geez, I was waiting for you to say that. I didn't mean it. But you two are really, I mean, you can see that.

Yeah, yeah. And she's, it's been unquestionable from her, you know, and she's been amazing. And it's really challenged our relationship in certain ways, you know, through, because there's been so much change. And there was this one particular point, you know, after we left hospital and when we were trying to get back to some sort of normality, whatever our new normal look like. And especially in the more interrelated. ways, you know, I had changed completely and the way that we would, you know, have intimate

moments had to change because of that. And she was struggling with that. So can I ask you something about that? How do you learn what to do? Is there anywhere like for anybody else that's going through something like that? Is there a website or something that you can get support with on how to navigate that? Because in a relationship when you've already been through a trauma, both of you that's as difficult as this and then trying to be intimate again, which is an important part of our relationship. There definitely is professional support,

but the best support I've always found and was one of the big reasons of starting the charity is peer support. And I was already reaping awards of that by the time I left hospital because Lois had persuaded me, I was keeping these voice notes on Alexa that would just dump brain done,

before I went to sleep. That's a brilliant idea. And I woke up one day and one of my mates was reading through all of my transcripts in the afternoon. I was like, I'm not going to out. I was like, Will, what are you doing?

They're private and he was like two things. One, you're a weirdo. Two, you should make some of those public because he might help someone one day. Of course, my automatic reaction to that was no way. You know, because I'd been brought up as a not just, I wasn't just a young bloke

who were terrible at admitting vulnerabilities and weaknesses. I was also a rugby player where we're literally actively told not to show weakness, even if you're injured on the pitch, don't let people know you're hurt, which is a dangerous narrative when it comes to mental health. But Lois Perthard down was like, we need to make some of this public. And off the back of that, I was putting a post out every day. I didn't want to look at the responses because I was too nervous about being vulnerable

in front of people. But then people, what started is something to help others. People started getting in contact with me who had been through similar situations, who had lived experience and all of a sudden I had this outlet of not just people with lived experience but people who I didn't know personally and I felt I could be a lot more honest with them

because it didn't feel like there was a feedback loop coming back to me and people say you know you confide in your closest friends and family sometimes that's difficult if what you're saying you know is going to hurt them get back yeah or yeah you know if I said that I don't I had suicidal thoughts last night

I don't want to put Lois or my mum through that. But now I've got Dave Smith or Joe Bloggs to speak to. And they're like, yeah, don't worry, that's normal. I had those thoughts. And they've gone on to live fulfilling lives. So that's when the gap started to narrow because these thoughts I was having to deal with by myself at night. All of a sudden, I'm messaging people or using Alexa to message people. And I've got this outlet.

And that really taught me that that started the cogs turning with the power of vulnerability and being honest about your emotions, which for blokes we're traditionally very, very poor at. You just mentioned suicidal thoughts then. Is that where you went? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fortunately, I couldn't do anything about it because I couldn't move. But it was just the thought processes of everyone's been better off without me.

You know, when I felt like I was going to be a burden on everyone for the rest of my life, I felt guilty that what I was putting them through emotionally, of course it's a ridiculous thought because you're going to put them through worse things if you're not there but when you're going through something there's trauma you have these and I've been very fortunate you know in my life until that point I'd never had to contemplate those thoughts you know I've got family members who suffered with anxiety and depression and I know there's plenty of people out there who have these thoughts regularly and I now have sympathy for that because I've felt it I don't feel it anymore but I've been there I've actually contemplated with life be better for everyone without me here.

And it's not a nice headspace to be in. And then all of a sudden I had the ability to tell people that, you know, these strangers that got in contact with me and they became my support network. So peer support, I think is incredibly important. And going back to the sexual side of things with Lois, there's a group called Wags of SCI, which are a wives and girlfriends group that are based in America. But they've got a full range of spinal cord injuries. And the thing about spinal cord injuries and nerve damage is it affects all your bodily functions.

So erectile dysfunction, bladder and bowel issues, like all of temperature regulation, spasms and stuff. And often every individual has to develop their own ways of coping. And they come together and they speak unbelievably bluntly about like the best things, what's working, what's not. So she's got that support network there. And for me, you know, it's other people with spinal cord injuries mostly that I get advice from. And the doctors will, you know, it's not an uncommon thing. They can help with medications and there are medications and there are a weight around things all the time. But at the time we were dealing with a change and these things have evolved, these support networks have evolved off the back.

And Lois actually went and spoke to someone without me knowing because she didn't want to hurt me. And she knew that would be a big insecurity of mine because I was at the rugby player, big macho, all of these things with physicality and were kind of part of my identity that I'd love. lost, but she was really struggling. And I'm so proud of her for doing that because I knew she felt guilty for it. But if she hadn't done that, it might have got to a point that, you know, she, and you see, we see it unfortunately, a lot with relationships, you know, someone's suffering, but they don't feel like they can say because they might not be the person with the trauma or whatever it might be.

And it gets to a point where it's, like, irreparable. And she had the very difficult conversation with me after speaking to the therapist and was like, look, this is the situation. And it hurt to hear it at first. What did she say? She said, I don't feel the same. It's really hard to be intimate. Like, your smell's different.

You know, all of these things. Yeah, like your nerve changes. And she's like, I actually sometimes feel like I'm cheating on you, if I'm kissing you. Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, yeah. But how brave. I know, yeah. And it was all done in the pretense of wanting to make it better.

Yes. And without having that really tough conversation. that she let you know that this isn't a goodbye. This is a, I want to get better. How did you find that? Because that's hard for you. Yeah, I found it really tough to hear because it was playing on my direct insecurities of losing my identity as being physical because I thought that's all I had.

Since a kid, like that's what I was looked up for, you know, being good at sport and, you know, all of this sort of stuff. And that's what directly had been taken away. You know, I was still the same in my mind, but my identity felt like it had been stripped. So I was having an identity crisis. I was burying myself in my rehab as a distraction to not think about what's the rest of my life going to look like. And to that point, I was probably neglecting Lois, like the relationship because I'd become so focused in another direction. But by having that tough conversation, it gave us the groundwork to then build, discover, work out new ways. Now it's better than ever.

you know and it's but it's different and that's okay well you what's amazing is what i've what i'm seeing obviously because we're talking is your journey of change not physically but your mental journey of change and the new open you know emotionally available ed must have been such a gift for lorish she's like you know god this is great i can sit down and have this really difficult conversation with someone who's going to hear it and can I go, okay, let's do something about this or you wouldn't have been able to do that. No, no, not before. My ego would have gotten away.

It's amazing though. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So then you, you, I mean, obviously we can see that physically you just carried on making these amazing advancements and then also mentally you have done enormous work on yourself. When did millimetres to mountains come along? How did that

come to fruition? So I'd moved home from hospital after four months. I moved back in my parents out of a similar wheelchair, but I was starting to stand and take a few steps. And after about nine months post-accident, I was really struggling again psychologically. because you kind of all you want to do is leave hospital but then you go home and people start to go back to their everyday lives

and there's a direct comparison for you in your house what you could do before and what you couldn't you can't get up the stairs you can't reach that thing in the cupboard and everyone else goes back to their lives and the bubble you were in in hospital of like was set up for you and everyone around you's got injuries as well has been burst and it's like okay this is it this is life now and I was still rehabbing as hard as I could.

You know, I'll say this now, the NHS got me back on my feet. You know, there's a lot of issues there. I mean, it's amazing at the trauma ends. You know, like they'll save your life. It's incredible. The resources are really affecting the rehab end. And there's a lot that needs to change there or be improved or it's a difficult one to even work out to improve it. But the individuals within the NHS, I had no extra outside support or help.

You know, it was them that got me to that point. but after that I was fortunate enough to be supported by the rugby community and restart charity that look after professional rugby players so I could get even better physio or more consistent physio after I left so I carried on making improvements and I started walking with the frame and sticks and I'd walked about a mile up at this point and but I was really struggling mentally for motivation to keep going because there was no end point yes before with a rugby injury I'd be like okay six month recovery but I'm going to be playing in that game on that date and I'll follow the process and get there. This was like open-ended. Everyone else had gone back to their lives. I still didn't know what the rest of my life was going to look like. So I said to my physiosur when I set myself a challenge. They were like what? We're going to climb Snowden. And they were like, okay, great, what? A two-year mark? I was like, no, in one year mark, which is three months time and I've only walked like a mile. Snowden's like, you know, it's going to be nine miles and all that. And do you know what? I told my hens,

and they were like, what are we doing? I was like, we're climbing Snowden. Really? And they were like, for a hen night. I'm like, yeah, great. It's beautiful. It is, yeah, as long as you get the right weather. It's stunning.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's amazing. So you knew Snowden, did you, like the surrounding area and you'd never climbed it before? No, I had. I'd run up it with pre-season training. Wow. Wow. It was, you know, it's obviously going to be different to that.

And actually, to be honest, given what, my physios laughed at me to start with. And I was like, look, I'm going to go and do it. You can come with me if you want. Did that drive you even further harder? Yeah, yeah. Of course it did. Of course it did. And they've been amazing.

And, you know, they laughed at the beginning and that. I was like, no, no, seriously, you can come if you want. And they're like, okay, we better go. And I also opened, I also opened it up online to the blog I was doing. If anyone wanted to come and turn up. And I didn't think anyone would. I thought, you know, some family members. I remember getting there.

And I didn't actually think I'd get to the top. I just knew that because there was a bit of a public window, because of rugby that the message that would be sent to other people in hospital some of my friends from the spinal unit that had been told this thing but actually he's back on his feet might give someone some hope to keep trying

that was the only reason I thought we'd get even if we got a few metres people would seem on my feet but I remember getting there and walking past this big group of 70 people there was this bus day I was like I was a bus tour or whatever walk past and they all started following me and I was like oh my god and they had all come to like support

strangers. Oh my God, amazing. Also people who were going through their own things, because that's what I said. I was like, if you're going through something, let's get together. And the first thing I thought was, oh shit, I'm going to have to get to the top now

because it's like this fear pressure. But after, you know, nine hours, we were on the summit of Snowden, the hardest physical thing I'd ever done, apart from having to wiggle my toe. And it was that moment that I realized that I could have some value in this world again. That I felt so useless.

and purposeless up to that, and such a burden up until that point. And now I looked around and all these people who had come and were taking something from this trip, they were sharing their journeys with me, which was incredibly inspiring. I was sharing mine with them. And I just looked out of Snowden,

and I just remember thinking, I don't know what my life's going to look like, but it's definitely not going to be normal, and it's going to be something to do with this. Can I just go to ask you about that? I want to take a moment on that. So where are you when you think that? Are you on the summit?

Yeah. Did you have a moment on your own? No, there was a lot of people around. But I had plenty of moments on my own in my head. Yeah. And did you, was it like a massive realisation? Like life-changing. It was a life-changing feeling.

Yeah. It wasn't a plan came into my head. It was a feeling of like, oh my God, that's what it feels like to be of use, to have purpose, to have some value. And I'd forgotten what that felt like. If enough, I decided if enough good can come from my accident for other people, then by definition,

I can change it from a bad thing that happens to a good thing that happens. Because that's the definition of a good or bad event, right? Has the outcome of it been net positive or net negative? And up to that point,

it was net negative. But because that's the definition of a good or bad event, right, has the outcome of it been net positive or net negative? And up to that point, it was net negative, but it was within my power

to change that to net positive. And the only way I could do that is by impacting other people as a result of my accident. Do you think that everybody has it within them to change their mental attitude to be able to think more like you? Because what you're talking about is a decision, is a decision that you made.

It's not something to do with your physicality or what you're able or can or can't do. You made a decision. I absolutely think they can. And we've seen it so many times with beneficiaries of our charity that we work with from a point of first conversation I have with them saying, I don't want to be here anymore. To now using their trauma to mentor our year one beneficiary to the charity and speaking publicly about what they've been through. So they've turned their trauma from something that was a negative of them, a source of pain, to a source of good. and I'm at the position

I was a long time ago where I'd say I wouldn't take it back genuinely but I would take back I'd like to be able to run around and things like that but every as a package I wouldn't go back and not dive in the pool and we've got loads of beneficiaries as well who've got to that point as well

because they realise how much stronger it's made them how it can be a tool for good their life is now different but it's not over and actually it can be way better but that is decisions like you like you said. And being able to make those decisions is based on support networks, outside influence, realisations, leaps of faith, you know, realizing that actually you have more control over your life than you think. You know, a lot of stuff happens to you, but it's how you deal

with the things that happen. You can control your reaction to those things. And so I believe anyone can. I think it's been a process. It was a process for me. It took years, you know, a couple of years. That was the main turning point. And then I didn't know we were going to start. to that point, that ended up as a realisation when I was in the pool and now, you know, it's just going from one thing to the next, but it all happened from a sense of purpose stood on top of Snowden and how powerful that was and realizing how rewarding it is to do things for other people, how healing it is. When my life was positively impacting others, it healed me. So it wasn't a completely selfless thing that I was doing. It was part of my

own recovery. It was like a lifeline, really. It just happened to be a win-win situation. And that's absolutely fine. It is funny how sometimes people level like a criticism of like, oh, you give too much, you know, look after yourself. It's like, no, I am looking after myself. It's like, no, I am looking after myself. It makes me feel better than not doing it. I don't want to just look after myself. If I can make somebody else happy and me happy at the same time. That's a win-win. And it's selfish in a way. But not in a bad way. But not in a bad way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's absolutely fine. So the mountains, you know, you started with Snowden and then you just got bigger and bigger and bigger. What was driving you then? So then you were like, okay, that felt so good, I want more.

There was how healing being outside was, nature. I think, as I said earlier, I used to play in the fields and in the woods with my brother the whole time. And then I didn't even realize this, but I was, my mum, grandparents, farmers, spent a lot of time to farm growing up. Then I played rugby, we're outdoors the whole time. Then I'm on a spinal unit performance inside. And I'm like, oh, that was tough. So being able to challenge myself physically, which is something I get reward and endorphins from. And a lot of the time I couldn't move enough to, I mean, you'll appreciate this because of the fitness side of things.

Like it's, that's how we get released and, you know, all of those things. I couldn't move enough to even get out of breath for nearly a year. And that is damaging. And for someone who's so used to it. So there's that side of it as well, being able to push myself physically, having goals to aim for being outside. All of those things were just like, wow, this is incredible. I love this. I've definitely done it back to front.

Most people don't get into mountaineering after having a spinal cord injury. they get into mountaineering then I was fine. But yeah, and I just wanted to go higher and higher, challenge myself, see how far I could go. And it was a metaphor for, the climbing mountain is often as a metaphor for life. Yes. You know, it's not a linear journey.

What you get, you get out, what you put in. There's preparation involved. The rewards are at the end. It's painful whilst you're doing it sometimes. And that had been my rehab journey. But then it was healing me so much, taking these challenges on. By that point, I've gone to the Alps and I've gone to Nepal,

hobbling up these mountains getting very strange looks from people. I thought this can help other people too. So that's when we started the charity. Initially, it was just people with spinal cord injuries, taking them on outdoor adventures. But then I realized recovering from trauma is universal. And we weren't trying to fix the spinal cord injury.

We were trying to get someone in a positive headspace. So then we opened it up to anyone who's been through a trauma. So we have people with PTSD, we have people with trauma. We have people with trauma, you know, bereavement in traumas, you know, all of these sorts of neurological conditions, physical conditions. But we use the outdoors and we use challenge and we use adventure. And it's not always climbing mountains. You know, we have wellness retreats around the country.

We've set up a network of walking groups across the country so people can come together and walk with other people who have been through trauma or other support network of people who've been through trauma. And most of it is about creating a community for people who can. can relate to each other, give advice to each other, or just be there for each other in these spaces that are healing anyway. I mean, the value of someone that's been through a trauma supporting someone else that's been through a trauma is without, you know, it's like any like-minded or somebody that's been through something, them helping each other. It's so easy to go,

you don't really understand. But actually, when you talk to somebody and you know they do, oh my God. Yeah. So healing. So powerful. And often they're not telling you anything different than a doctor or someone might be. But it just hits home more. Or when somebody goes, you know, you go, yeah. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That happens all the time. So good. Yeah. And do you find people want to come back and help other people? Yeah. You know, it's not like you come to the charity. You take advantage of the retreats or whatever and then you leave.

Lots of them might want to come back and mentor other people coming in or. Yeah. And that's the most beautiful thing. I think that, um, I was supported a lot through my journey by people mentoring me online, people are further down the line who became, who have become good friends. So then I felt as a privilege to be able to pay that forward to other people, but it's because I knew how much it helps because I'd been on the receiving end.

Yes. It wasn't just, I'd studied it and done it. I've been on the receiving end. So I was passionate about it. But we have through our core aim of the charity, the core function of the charity, outside of the mass walks is we take eight beneficiaries on a year for a three-year program. So it's an inch-wide, mile-deep approach. We really want to change someone's life.

Because the ripple effect of changing someone's life is they go on and change other people's lives. And that's really what we're experiencing. Like my recovery process psychologically was probably about three years. And it involved these challenges. It involved a support network of physios, therapy, whatever it might be. And I almost started to be guilty that I had access to this and other people didn't. So paying that forward for them. but we've had three cohorts who've done the full three-year program now.

Loads of them have gone on to become life coaches, set up their own charities. They come back and mentor the first year beneficiaries because they appreciate how much difference support can make. And when you look at their stories from going from, I don't want to be here anymore, to now running their own charity or life coaching people based purely on their trauma. the strength coming from their trauma it's just an incredible thing to be a part of and to witness. So obviously at this point you and Lois are like,

this is great. We've done lots of work on ourselves. We're in a good place. We've started this charity. We really are making a difference. We've got purpose. And then another enormous life experience. happens to you. Can you just talk me through? Where were you at at that time?

So as well as running the trips of the charity, which is for varying, varying abilities, so everything from a small walk in central London to climbing big mountains in the Himalayas, I was still on this journey of adaptive mountaineering and pushing myself as far as I could. And I was on a mission to try and break a height record for someone with a spinal cord injury in Nepal. trying to break my own record, but I was trying to get to 7,000 metres. And I picked a mountain called Him Langhamal, which is really remote on the Tibet-Napal border, because I love the adventure side. I don't just want to go and be surrounded by other Western teams.

Like, this mountain had been climbed in two years. Oh, wow. And I went with a friend and actually another beneficiary of the charity, who's an ex-paratrooper called Ben, who I recognised a lot of the similar psychological journeys, but I was a bit further down the line. I thought this could be really rewarding from him, That's be super fit. But effectively what happened is we went to spend three weeks on this mountain.

And we went for a summit attempt. The snow conditions weren't good and things were against us. We had to turn round at like 6,800 metres. Can I quickly just ask you about that? Yeah. As a rugby player, professional rugby player, somebody that's been through that whole journey that you've been through, how hard was that mentally to do?

really hard. I broke down in tears on the slope. I mean, we were taking at that point one step every sort of 30 seconds or a minute because we were so exhausted. And it's the accumulation of spending two weeks doing rotations trying to go up this mountain. And I realized at that point that the team were there supporting me, but they were also going through it too

and they wouldn't turn around unless I made the decision. and so I was responsible for them being there in the first place. So I had to decide. With the summit 200 metres away, 200 vertical meters away, I mean, granted that could take six or seven hours. But you could see it. I mean, clear as day, couldn't you? It was right there because it's in the, all in the documentary.

I was like, so close. No. But I felt this overriding urge that you need to turn around. Right. You knew. I knew. And so we. did and we were descending and the heart of me when I turned round on the slope I realized that I had no power left in my leg by one good leg and I saw it's just collapsing so I was having to slide down the slope on rope and then there were crevasses to make sure you stop the grass and jump over them and slide we ended up at the shoulder off the mountain and at the edge of the glacier and our guide walked around the corner to check our route back we're all exhausted we've been going for over 20 hours at this point and

he walked five meters away and just disappeared through the snow. And this bit isn't actually in the film but he disappeared through the snow and he had fallen through a crevasse and he wasn't roped up. So we're like, oh my God, it could be dead. And we could hit, but then we heard him shouting and we went over and he could just see his head torch. He'd fallen 20

meters into a crevasse. Managed to slow himself down on the fall because it was narrow crevasse, but his ice axe was stuck in the wall. So then we had to, Big Raj to guide, managed to get him out. But by this point, we're all so exhausted, and we realized that the snow field that we'd walked off over the night before was now the snow was so soft that we were surrounded by Kovassas.

So we couldn't get back to the next camp. So we're stuck there. And Big Raj raids, radios, unapawly guide, great friend of mine, radios for the helicopter, to come and pick us up. Because otherwise, we've got no tents. We've got run out of food, run out of water. 6,000 metres, it's going to go to minus 25, minus 30 at night.

Like, we've not got much chance. And the helicopter came back and said, we've only got two hours of daylight. It's going to take longer than that for us to get to you from Kathmandu, and we can't fly at that height without infrared, we shouldn't have. So you're going to have to just wait till morning. So then we huddled up on the side of this mountain

and just prayed that we made it till sunrise. Exhausted, keeping each other away, passing out, waking up, but trying to keep, we knew that if we fell asleep, we wouldn't wake up. So it was a very, very long night, and it got to the point of hallucinating and all of these sorts of things. But we were really fortunate that the weather didn't change. So it was 10 minus 25 degrees, but dead still.

If any wind is here, we'd have been in trouble because that can drop the temperature by 15 degrees instantly. And then in the morning, I should remember seeing the sun coming up the valley. And you can watch it as it moves through the mountains. So you knew the temperature would, as soon as it hits you, would jump 20 degrees and we'd be rescued. But the helicopters then still got to try and find us, and we're tiny on this dots on this mountain. The radios had run out of battery. So they'd got our GPS locations, but everyone at Base Camp thought we were dead because we couldn't radio them. And then this helicopter comes up the valley, and they've stripped all the weight out of it.

Because we're at 6,000 meters is the maximum flying point for a helicopter for a rescue. and it's an Austrian it turns out to be an Austrian heli ski pilot and a lot of them do seasons in the Alps and I mean unbelievable pilots and he found a place to land and but couldn't land properly just dug the front engine and one by one took us off the

mountain and obviously we gave everyone at base camp was very happy because we'd survive they'd put the prayer flags up for us because they thought we weren't making it off and you were really struggling with like frostbite it looked like on your face and my lips fell off about five times Yeah, we were pretty bad.

Pretty hard call. I remember the first call to Lois because they were, we were out of phone signal, so for like three weeks, but we had a sap phone so we could send the odd message. And they realized, they knew what day we were supposed to summit, what day we were supposed to come back down. They didn't hear anything from us. And I called Lois a day later. And weirdly, her and Evie, who were Ben's partner. And I think Aaron's mom all had all got in contact with each other because, and they had all woken up in the middle of the night

at about the same time with this horrible feeling the night before, which is really weird. But I remember ringing Lois and saying, we're down, we're all alive, I'll tell you more about it another time. She's like, no, more, what, darling? She was like, okay, she didn't realize what had happened.

It took me quite a long time to divulge the full information. Obviously, you've seen the film, I know, so she knows. But the film shows, because otherwise it would be a whole film in itself, but you show what happened. But I've actually just finished writing a book, which is based on the thousands of words of diaries I kept over there with like the real in-depth story.

But it was another really formative time of my life because we were like, am I going to see the morning? I'm like, this is a shame. I was like, I've just rebuilt my life to a point where I'd love it more than before and I've gone and blown it. But unfortunately I made it through. What has that taught you?

Everything is a lesson to you. see that. What does this? Because effectively, what it feels like to an outsider that it's teaching you is stop it. Stop. Stop. Yeah. But that that's probably not what it's told you maybe. No, but it did teach me that. A, I had been, not slipping, but like, I had to realign myself my values. It was a big, another shot across the bow of, like, life's finite and to do things you're passionate about and I put more weight into the charity and probably start saying no to a few more things that might have been more financially driven, you know, and which is, you know, important you've got to earn money as well. Yes. We don't earn any money from the charity. That's a

passion project. So, um, but it was a good, it was a good reminder of those things to realign a bit more. And it's also a good lesson. Just because you've had all these profound moments in your life, we're still human and we still need these general, we still need to work on ourselves. And we do need to remind ourselves, you know, from time after time. time, not by nearly dying, but it's not just a one shot. That's it for the rest of your life. Yeah. But it also made me realize how much I wanted to be alive.

And it probably, it only definitely has impacted the type of challenges that I would take on in terms of, I'm saying this, as I know what I'm doing this year. What you do? What do you do? Ed, are you allowed to tell me what you do? What do you do? Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, this all been in planning stage, but I'm going to go to Kyrgyzstan and try and climb a mountain that's never been climbed before by any other humans.

So with a team of other people with disabilities. So it'll be the first, first descent by a group with disabilities. So it's more about the message it sends and putting a flag in the ground for accessible adventure and promoting disability and outdoors. trying to encourage more people who don't think it's for them because of there are certain situations that it can be too. So that's going to be an adventure. But the safety team is a lot more thought out. We've got, we're not going to be out of radio

and all of these sorts of things. And I'm not going to just chase adrenaline because it's, I think eventually it becomes selfish. You know, what are you putting other people through as a result of that? However, I'm not going to not do it because it's so important for my, you know, I'm not going to adventure and live my life that way because it's so important and integral to who I am. And Lois knows that, and she's amazing.

And she comes and does some stuff with me. You know, if it's anything less than two days in a tent, she'll do it. That's the only defining factor. I would Lois. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I completely appreciate it. That's fine. But yeah, she's amazing.

Well, she'll do one night in a tent. Yeah, she'll one night and ten. But also, you can just do stuff in the Alps and stay in a lovely ski lodge. Great. Yeah. That sounds really, with a hot tub. Yeah, exactly. Yay.

Yeah. I just kind of feel like asking, what are your lasting lessons? You know, have you got a list of things that somebody watching or listening to this might get something from? Yeah, so, I mean, obviously this is so multifaceted, the things you learn over time as much about, you know, taught directly from the trauma. but actually what we've learned from a lot of studying, like really getting into philosophy and psychology and working with lots of other people who are going through trauma from all different backgrounds.

And, you know, the four pillars of the charity are our four piece. So you've got purpose, you know, finding purpose in your life, building purpose in life. For me, that's helping other people. But I don't think purpose is built, not found. Yes. You know, it's like it's a sense. It's relying yourself with your values.

It's the way you interact with the world. And eventually you will start to feel this sense of purpose through the way you interact with things. So you ever written that down anywhere? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's all of the, so this is what we work through the, with the beneficiaries through this program. And actually, Lois and I have just put it into a course.

Oh, great. Online course, yeah. Wait, just tell me how can people access that? So it's called New Heights. And it launched this week, actually. So, yeah. which is really exciting. I just,

we've seen all this profound impact it's having. But also it's the way I live my life now as well. You know, there's purpose, progress, seeing progress in your life in any sort of form, whether that's becoming a better partner, better at your job,

better in the gym. We need progress. It's very interesting how so many people see progress as financial. Yeah. They don't see progress as being a better partner. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's important. Because when you stagnate in life, that's when you open yourself. You're vulnerable to some of them. men's mental health issues. So we try and encourage people to do that, measure their progress in certain ways, whatever that progress might be. Perseverance is important because, like, life is tough, and sometimes it's shit, sometimes it's hard, and often the people that get to where

we want to be in life, or the people we look up to, or whatever that might be, or it's not necessarily because they're better or more capable. It's the people who stick things out when times get tough, but then it's also understanding which direction to persevere in, so that comes back to purpose. So they're all intricately linked. And then the last one is perspective, which has probably been the biggest dose you get from having to contemplate your mortality, right, feeling grateful about your life, all the things about your life that you had in the first place, enjoying it, giving you a new lease of life. So that's the four piece. And that's what we've built the course around. It's what we work in charity.

It's not just about pulling yourself out of the debts. It's about even if you're in a good place. It's like how do you get to a better place? Yeah. So they're the main takeaways for me personally. gratitude of just being here, how fortunate I have to have the amazing support network around me, how fortunate I am to have Lois, how fortunate I have to have this new mindset to go and really embrace the world and take it on and take leaps, go on adventures and take leaps of faith

and more than anything, gratitude that I'm in a position where I can have a positive impact on other people's lives. Not everyone, but what a, you know, humbling, sometimes burdenful, You know, I speak to a lot of people who are going through serious, that heavy trauma, and you go through it with them. Like one thing that is given me is I've become a lot more empathetic, which is a blessing and a curse, because it's good to be empathetic, but the same time you carry a lot of weight from people. But more than anything, it's a complete privilege because if you feel like you can have an impact on someone else's life, and that doesn't need to be in the macro sense, doesn't need to be saving people. or it can just be like being a better partner or being a better parent, then it's so rewarding for you.

And often the best way to help yourself isn't by turning inwards. It's turning outwards. I'd just like to thank you for being a brilliant role model to young men as well, I think, like your journey. It's about the mental journey that you've been on and how you've grown. own as a person in an amazing arch. And the other thing I really appreciate from you, which I think

I've got an 18-year-old son, so this is why I'm talking about young men and how important it is for him to have great positive role models in life. And how hard it is sometimes to find men who are strong and vulnerable and how helpful it is to find. great real models that are yeah i couldn't agree more um actually something else that's happened like we got in a conversation with three guys on an ice cap doing this ice cap crossing first all disabled crossing an ice cap one was former oppression rober player myself one was a former explorer adventurer and one was um training being the sas and we had all had spinal cord injuries darren was in a wheelchair or sit skier at the time now's an incomplete paraplegic i'm an incomplete quadriplegic

and we just got talking about what does it mean to be a man these days because what we thought it was to be a man was to be big and tough and, you know, unflappable and show no weakness. And now we realised that the only way for us to move forward was to be able to admit things we can do and help each other and ask for support. Because I was the only way we were going to get across the ice cap. So we got this conversation going. And I realized, I think it's pretty obvious, that there aren't many positive male role models at the moment in terms of the younger generation to really, that are in the public eye. you know, the problem is you've got people like Andrew Tate and it can be quite toxic. And I think it's confusing these days for young men to really understand how to be or how to act.

And sometimes it goes, I think it's gone too far both ways. You know, you've got toxic masculinity, which needs to be rained back in. But then often people are like, well, can I be a man at all? Because they're being told to not align with their testosterone or follow their urges to adventure or whatever that might be. And there is such a positive masculinity. So we're, me and my friend, Matt, that's a great concept. Me and my friend Matt have actually a starting a podcast with six episodes in me I haven't launched it yet called Boys Will Be Boys.

But this is exactly that. It's taking men that we look up to, often that are big rough and tumble from the outside, but are really now in touch with their vulnerabilities and the things they're scared of and showcasing them to the world so that younger men can have, it might be someone they already look up to. So like someone from the SAS or whatever, but then they're talking about what they're scared of on a day-to-day basis. and I think that's really important to be able to balance that out.

This sounds really good. Good luck with that. Yeah, I'm excited about that, yeah. I often kind of wonder what I do for a living. Who am I? What am I doing? I think the thing that's given me purpose in life is being an amplifier. That's what I call myself. And if you ever need any help with any of your amazing projects,

I'm happy to try and help you amplify. them in any way that I can. I appreciate that. I've loved talking to you. Yeah, me too. Thanks so much for everything that you do for everybody and getting such a great positive message out there. But also thank you for letting me in to your life. I've really enjoyed it. I could say exactly the same to you. It's a privilege and yeah, keep doing what you're doing because it's okay to do selfish good. You know, that's absolutely fine. Keep taking something from it. Oh, thank you.

That was one of those interviews where at the end, I just was beaming full of energy and positivity. I felt like Ed was so good at explaining the takeaways from his life and how we can all work at improving our quality of life. And the really big thing I got from it, that he was saying, even if you are one of those people who kind of see life as a bit of a problem, you can change that. You're not powerless. You can do something about it. That's such a message of hope, right?