After losing Karen, my wife of 19 years, to cancer I decided to learn to ride her horse. I’d get up at 4.30am, go to learn at her best friend Kelly’s stable and then start work at 7.30am.
After leaving the stables at around 7am I was riding my motorbike to work in Eastbourne where I was an engineer when a car did a U-turn in front of me without warning. I think they were dropping someone off at a bus stop.
I was doing about 50 miles an hour, but I didn’t have time to touch the brakes. I hit the car, my head hit the front of my motorbike and I was thrown through the air. I had concussion, injuries to the soft tissue in my chest, both my wrists and my pelvis were broken, and I had an open fracture to my leg where it struck the engine of the car. Cars are made to collapse on impact these days, but you don’t get collapsible engines.
I looked up and the first person I saw was Adam Henstock, a fireman who is married to Kelly, my wife’s friend who had just been teaching me to ride. He was holding my head – when I caught up with him in hospital I told him I thought I’d been dreaming! He said the people around him didn’t think I was going to survive.
The police closed the road and a land ambulance crew arrived to care for me before a KSS helicopter carrying Dr Duncan Bootland and HEMS Paramedic Ben Clarke came in. The air ambulance team gave me drugs to deal with the pain and I was out of it. I think the original plan was to take me to a London hospital but because the weather was bad I was taken to the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton. We flew along the coast, if I remember rightly.
A couple of days later I woke up after a long operation, with a morphine pump and a button I could press if I was in pain. I remember thinking `I’ll press that straight away’!
I didn’t move home again permanently until the end of January and went back to work full time about six months later.
Although I wanted to ride again, I needed help. My mates suggested we go to a rally on the Isle of Wight on the first bank holiday in May. I rode pillion – which I normally hate – and they had to lift me on and off the bike, but it was great.
Later when I got a new bike three of us went on a run to Spain for ten days rough camping which was lovely. I did quite a few miles and it hurt, but no pain no gain.
I’ve had to make a few changes. I was right-handed but I’ve taught myself to use my left hand for writing. I play drums in a band but had to figure out a new way to play using elastic bands on my wrists as shock absorbers. Having a bath is a bit awkward so I tend to have showers these days.
Later I learned my stepdad John had also been helped by an air ambulance. In 2009 he was doing some roof repairs in Cumbria when he slipped and fell and Great North Air Ambulance came out to him. So we have two members of the same family who have each been helped by different air ambulances, which must be very unusual.
I didn’t know an air ambulance had been involved in my incident until a while later. When I found out I was annoyed I hadn’t been properly awake to enjoy the flight! I know now that because KSS was there I had the best possible care.
I’ve been through some rubbish, in a short space of time, but I’m still here smiling thanks to KSS. Having been to visit KSS at the Redhill base I’m totally blown away by the organisation and what it does. All I can say is thank you very much for saving my life.
Road safety
One of the things I want to get across to people is about being prepared, riding the right way and using the right safety equipment such as clothing and helmets.
The crash helmet I was wearing was a bit bashed, but it saved my life, so I went straight back out and bought another one when I was going to ride a bike. Get decent equipment and use it. The proper clothing may be warm but on a hot day I’d rather be hot than… you know.
If just one person listens to my story and thinks `actually, I haven’t got the right gear, I’m not going to go out today, that would be great.
Allan McHenry, Clinical Director at KSS:
“This mission was a request from the SECAmb crew who were at the scene. It took 26 minutes to get to Martyn’s side, and the crew landed at what we refer to as an Alpha landing site, within 100 metres of the patient.
Martyn was agitated, possibly due to a head injury and he’d got some significant arm and leg fractures. Our team were able to give him ketamine and midazolam, drugs that the land ambulance crew couldn’t give him, which managed his pain and agitation and allowed them to give him the rest of the care that he needed.
He needed to go quickly to a major trauma centre, so he was flown to the Royal Sussex County Hospital. He was on the aircraft and en route to hospital within 24 minutes and arrived at the hospital landing site in Brighton just nine minutes after leaving the scene.
It’s great to hear that Martyn has made such a good recovery and that he’s leading a full life following the care that KSS was able to provide for him following such a traumatic accident.”
ENDS
