ALAN's Story

The second car drove straight over me and left tyre tracks on my helmet. It left me a paraplegic. The accident dislocated my T3 and T4 vertebrae, broke my shoulder blade and punctured my lungs. It broke my ribs and bruised the outside of my heart. I also had a head contusion and a small break in the back of my neck. I was in hospital for about six months and in an induced coma for two to three weeks. Even in the coma, I already knew in my sub-conscious that my back was broken and I couldn’t walk.

I’m still here though, so I feel that I’m destined for greatness – or I would have died on the road the day of my accident.

I was born out west in Cowra, NSW. I came from a poor family and a very broken family so I left there as soon as I could and went to travel. My grandmother on my father’s side is Irish Gypsy and I feel like I’ve always had that Gypsy spirit. I travelled all around Australia. I ended up near Perth and did all the Top End too. It was a five-year working holiday. I eventually ended up back in Cowra and got myself in too much trouble so in the end, I just put up a big brick wall and promised myself I was never going to go back there and ended up settling on the Gold Coast for 20 years after that.

On the Gold Coast, I became a professional Golf Course Shaper, Construction and Design Supervisor. I freelanced between different Design companies. Graham Marsh, who’s one of the best Australian Golf Course Design companies anywhere, said “I would have no hesitation recommending Alan as a Specialist Shaper of the highest order and he would be an enormous asset to any project in any part of the world.” I got to travel everywhere. I also breed and race thoroughbred horses. I’ve got a gorgeous brood mare at the moment. She recently had a foal and I just found out she’s in foal to Coolmores Adelaide. Some of my horses have sold to top breeders overseas.

After my accident, I moved back to NSW. I just assumed there would be accessible housing available for me but I couldn’t have been more wrong. I’ve done it extremely tough for the last 12-14 years in non-wheelchair friendly accommodation. I ended up in emergency accommodation in Muswellbrook, near Scone. That was the only accommodation I could get. It was basically government housing they outsourced to Compass housing, but it was extremely difficult to live there. The neighbourhood was really rough and dangerous. I was completely isolated because I just had to sit alone most of the time with my music on to drown out what was happening around me. I didn’t associate with the people there because they were ice addicts, junkies and alcoholics. I kept my doors and windows locked at all times. I knew I’d get robbed and didn’t go out at night. I didn’t feel safe to have my family visit. I could hear everything that happened around me – the violence, police raids the walls were so thin!

Being there made me really depressed. Plus, I’d been through 4 different care providing companies and they were all rubbish. The carers had no idea about SCI and some of them treated me so badly and stole from me. Both my shoulders had also caved in and I was waiting on further operations on them. Everything was going downhill and I really wanted to neck myself and just not be here anymore. I went to see my GP to put my hand up for help. He put me in touch with the Hunter Spinal Cord Injuries team to try and get me out of the state I was in and through them, I found Sargood in Collaroy who gave me faith in humanity again. That place turned me around. It’s where I realized there were actually people out there who respected, cared and treated people with spinal cord injuries with the quality of care we should be getting. I’ve been there 8 times now and met some of my best mates.

I also found out about the SDA through them. There’s like a ten-year waiting list on emergency housing. I was supposedly near the top of the list but nothing ever happened with it. I started looking for private housing through the SDA. It gave me hope and a bit of positivity.

Then I met Paul and Angie from Ability SDA and my life really started changing. It was like a 2-year process going through the NDIS applications and waiting for this apartment to get built but they have supported me the whole time and given me updates on everything as it was happening. It really kept me going. My amazing carer, Jenna Evans, also helped me with the application process and supporting me through the waiting period. I couldn’t have done it without her and Paul and Angie. I have nothing but admiration for Paul and Angie – what they’re doing for people and what they’ve achieved. Without them, my only option is an old-people’s home.

In my life, I’ve had 5 major life-altering events. The first three, were the births of my children Leigh, Patrick & Jazmyn. The fourth was my accident. That was a huge negative change but I’ve tried to turn the negative into a positive and feel like it made me a 10 fold better person. The last one was meeting Paul and Angie and ending up in this amazing apartment. I am so blessed. I really feel like this is the year where the universe has opened every door to me and brought me everything I could ever have asked for in my paraplegic life. This place is incredible. I finally feel I’ve found home. It’s the best place I’ve ever lived. In fact, I think all you able-bodied people have got it wrong and should be building accessible apartments like mine. Seriously, there’s so much space!

I’ve got a ceiling hoist in my bedroom. It makes everything so much easier for me. This week, Jen my carer, helped me strap on my prosthetic legs to support myself so that I could walk around my bed using canadian crutches, basically unassisted apart from my ceiling hoist and stand for weight bearing. I literally had the space to do laps around my room! I haven’t had an opportunity like this in years. I can’t wait to keep exercising and getting stronger and stronger. I want to be standing when I have my first Group 1 Winner at the racetrack!

I also can’t regulate my body temperature and need 2 mattresses side-by-side. One is a pressure mattress and the other is a comfort mattress. In Winter, I freeze on the pressure mattress and in Summer the comfort one makes me overheat. This is the first time in 14 years that I have the space to link them together and be comfortable. Plus, it means I don’t fall out of bed as much. The only other option was just to lie there and wait for a carer to find me but that could be a day later. Now I’ve got everything I need and an awesome bathroom and kitchen too.

Being here has given me so much more control over my life and my choices, a better quality of life. I have a great team of 7 carers led by Jenna of course. They’re amazing positive, fit, jovial girls and a good mate called Big Red (Jacob) who’s a personal trainer and has helped me with my workouts and training to keep my shoulders strong and keep me fit and healthy.

I’ve met lots of new people in the building. Not just other people with disabilities, but able-bodied people too. The Korean guy across the way is a good mate and we help each other out. I can’t wait to go hang out on the rooftop terrace and have a BBQ.

The surrounding area is amazing. I really needed to get closer to hospitals and transport because there was nothing out near my emergency housing. I was so isolated. Now everything is at my fingertips. I can drive to everything I need in my wheelchair. I just go across the road to the hospital. All the shops are close-by and the train station and a bus stop are right outside the building doors. The racetrack is just 2kms away, football stadium, the lake and my chair will get me 20-25kms even when I have a carer standing on the little platform behind me. They just hop on and we scoot off to where we need to go. I even go down to the golf course just to see what they’re doing… they’ve done a crap job with the shaping. They could use help from a bloke like me!