Ed Jackson: How Nearly Losing His Life Gave Him a New Reason to Live

45:28I was conscious of making that, exactly that. Motivating the physios and motivating the nurses around 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, but 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 meets.

46:06So you become how you interact with the world. It's like mental forging. But there's a period there which is... Mental forging. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Sorry, Gary. 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. Wow. 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, pinpricks, 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.

46:49And I was category ASIA A1, 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 myself i couldn't even breathe for myself properly because all of the muscles around your rib cage and diaphragm stop working too god of course and you know you're in these situations where you're lying on your back at night and a bit of saliva goes down your throat and you'd 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 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 bright face on again it's like i'm doing okay guys but at night you're going through this what do you what 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 you know i've 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 headspace 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 rugby again you know let alone walk or whatever it might be and they told me so it was 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 um the nurse 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 album and bob marley and i just used to go alexa play fleetwood mac so i'd be blasting this music out wait wait which is your favorite track

49:11songbird probably yeah love that song yeah

49:20so do you know what's really weird I didn't really listen to Fleetwood Mac before apart from playing Parsley what made you want to listen to it 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 Ruba's album that the owners had and I was looking at it and then I dived in the pool and broke my neck and woke 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 the catholic to watch Fleetwood Mac. Yeah.

49:50Do you think that's like a neural pathway thing? Yeah, it 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, it must be a similar thing, 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 stuff yeah so you're you're doing alexa i'm distracting myself with that i'm doing breathwork stuff but really my mindset and the the main distraction is having other people in the room like your support network so when people came in during the day um 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 and some strangers almost and wanting to come and and the amazing outpouring messages and um wait wait when you say it's like witnessing your own funeral is this because you're kind of thinking you're all thinking that does anyone actually line me and is anyone going to turn up to my funeral so it was quite reassuring that because it's almost like that happens that i started to and will never take for granted again how amazing my friendship network is and my family and 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 isn't that great Yeah, it's amazing.

51:26It's amazing. 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. M2M. M2M, 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 head 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 you know i've got friends who are complete quadriplegics who live amazing lives you know um but one of the biggest correlators is how strong the support network is.

52:24You 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. 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 with 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.

53:00Yeah, 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 post-accident, can't move, tubes in my nose, everything. I'm having to look through these right-angled 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 here 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 probably not repeatable, but it's been a really big tool.

53:33Because 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 yeah but it's such a relief though isn't it it's like oh god at last i can just talk about it not see people going oh oh my god oh i think when you aren't if you when you don't have a disability it's you obviously can't make light of it but it must be lovely being around yeah other well you don't want to make light of it 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 yeah and my partner and i are very like funny we can we can do that um but it's you you have to love somebody in order to be able to do that so it's a great sign of you 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 some it's a memory that you can go oh that was yeah definitely um 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 um 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 yeah and um the people in the that you know the people that were some people come in and because it was quite visibly shocking you know neck brace tubes machines oh i see so oh yes what i think you're meaning is when i was talking about people who are fanning the fear like who go oh you've got a brain tumor oh no that's terrible and you go i don't want you to do that i just want you to go oh great you're gonna be fine yeah we know it's serious let's just have a laugh you know treat me normally you know what we can't do anything about that so let's just and and i unfortunately a lot of my friends are like that but there were obviously some people who came in the right rabbit in the head headlights as well but not on the whole people started treating me normally but that was the way for them to do that was for me to be outwardly okay but 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 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 wow and um well and then they say that to you what did you hear

56:56I knew that was going to be delivered and my mum and wife were you know burst into tears in the room um and I reacted in quite a funny way because it was actually the word independence that really shook me so you so you how do you mean it shook you like you were like what 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 and to deserve this you know poor me sort of situation you know inwardly these are the dark thoughts at night um and now I realize 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 um in fact at this point I was telling Lois to leave me already so that was interesting but yeah but anyone who was going to be caring for me and I knew it might 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 um 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 but 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 um up to 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 gonna come yeah it'd only been a week but after that he left and I was like right I'm gonna try and do everything I can to move and if it happens unbelievable if it doesn't happen at least I'm gonna be able to live with myself when I'm having to be cared for.

58:45So what, how, when, 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, moving your toes. You open your eyes, nothing's happening. Often you, you're moving them in your head and it feels like they're moving, but then nothing happens when you're opening your mind, 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 and energy and in fact that was the first time I realized how hard I'd pushed 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 your back's 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've been able to do before um so that's another reframe for me and learning from it now that I take into later life it's like yeah you think you you're at your limit but you're nowhere near your limit you know that's incredible isn't it 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've run so hard if someone put a gun against your head and said do it again you probably you could yeah but if someone asked you to do it again you'd be no way yeah yeah um but so 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 no it's not going to happen and then we're 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 wiggle.

1:00:37And I just remember closing my eyes again 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, it's a spasm, it's a spasm. Did it again and again and again. And then I was just like, mom, but she's in the corridor. I was like, get in there. Oh my God. I was like, mom, get in there. I was like, look at my toe. And 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 wasn't um 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 for everything else and I'll 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 spinal shock if you traumatize your spinal cord or your brain it'll go into shock and normally shuts down for 48 72 hours right and then 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 shock right so it was the right prognosis to give but at the time but if I hadn't had that motivation from my support network wanting to do it from other people stopping thinking about myself and 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 you know consider myself self-fortunate that I have this amazing support network to get better for because like we spoke to you 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 you know all of these sorts of things you've got to play your part in this as well yes you 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 and speak at hospitals about what we've been doing.

1:03:07And I feel incredibly fortunate to be where I am today because my bar got moved from winning Man of the Match awards and being a professional road player to wiggling my toe. And I had to come to terms with 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 being able to do that again.

1:03:40They all make me happier. Yes. So when your bar's lowered and you start to appreciate all the things that you used to 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 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 this is quite funny I thought no I'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 and do you feel that's like more powerful now yeah oh yeah yeah i mean i look at every the world looks so beautiful yeah the buildings are gorgeous and 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 you're just 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 the waste trapped people yeah in the you know the rat racing is it all right to talk about lois and you at this point yeah yeah of course yeah that um obviously in in the documentary um that that you made she's she's kind of amazing I love her.

1:05:17And 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. 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'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 certain pool and look how it's impacted everyone?

1:06:02And 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 gonna 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 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 jeez I was waiting for you to say that but you two are really I mean yeah 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 it's challenge 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 when we were trying to get back to some sort of normality whatever our new normal looked like and especially in the more intimate ways you know I had changed completely and the way that we were 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 any way of 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 yeah be intimate again which is an important part of a relationship.

1:07:36There definitely is. There's professional support, but the best support I've always found and was one of the big reasons of starting the charity is peer support. Right. And I was already reaping the rewards of that by the time I left hospital because Lois had persuaded me. I was keeping these voice notes on Alexa that were just brain dumps 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 gonna 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 this public because it 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 put her foot down was like we need to make some of this public and off the back of that we 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 in front of people but then people what started as 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 right because there it didn't feel like there was a feedback loop coming back to me and you know people say you know you confide in your closest friends and and family sometimes that's difficult if what you're saying you know is gonna hurt them get back yeah or yeah you know if you if I said look I don't I had suicidal thoughts last night i don't want to i'll put lois or my mom through that but now i've got dave smith or joe blogs you know to speak to and they're like yeah don't worry that's normal i had those thoughts and they've gone on to you know live fulfilling lives um 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 a lecture to message people and um 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 um fortunately i couldn't do anything about it because i couldn't move but it was the 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 put that was putting them through emotionally um 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 have 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 felt it I don't feel it anymore but I've been there you know I've actually contemplated with life be better with for everyone without me here and it's not a nice headspace to be in and that 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 there's a group called wags of sci which are a wives and girlfriends group that are based in america but they and 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 regulations spasms and stuff um and often they 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 um that i get advice from and the doctor doctors will you know it's not an uncommon thing they can help with medications and there are medications and there are a way 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 match all of these things with physicality and were kind of part of my identity that I'd 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 say 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 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 you're doing like nerve changes and she's like i actually You sometimes feel like I'm cheating on you if I'm kissing you.

1:13:01Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, 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. And she started with that. She let you know that this isn't a goodbye. This is a, I want to get better. Yeah, yeah. 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 you know 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 um 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 having that 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 as we're talking is your journey of change, not physically, but your mental journey of change.

1:14:24And the new open, you know, emotionally available Ed must have been such a gift for Laura. 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 kind of 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, 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. um when did millimetres to mountains mountains come along how did that come to fruition um so I'd moved home from hospital after four months moved back in with my parents I was still in a 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 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 know you can't get up the stairs you can't reach that thing in the in the cupboard and everyone else goes back 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 and um 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 out extra outside support or help you know it was them that got me to that point um 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 a frame and sticks and I'd walked about a mile 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 hey six month recovery but I'm going to be playing that game on that day.

1:17:03A goal. 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 physios, I want to set myself a challenge. They were like, what? I was like, we're going to climb Snowden. And they were like, okay, great. What, a two-year mark? I was like, no, 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? Do you know, I told my hens, and they were like, what are we doing?

1:17:34I was like, we're climbing Snowden. Really? And they were like, for a hen night. I was 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. So 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 i'm gonna go and do it you can come with me if you want did that drive you even yeah yeah of course it did of course it did and they've been amazing and you know they laughed at the beginning and i was like no no seriously you can come if you want no like okay we better go and i also opened i also opened it up on online to through 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 meters people would see him on their feet but i remember getting there and walking past this big group of 70 people there was this bus there i was a bus tour whatever walk past and And they all started following me.

1:18:55And I was like, what? I was like, oh, my God. And they'd all come to, like, support strangers. Oh, my God. Amazing. And 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 peer 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.

1:19:29I felt so useless and purposeless up to that and such a burden up until that point. And now I looked around and there were 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 snow 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. and it can I just go ahead I want to take a moment on that so where are you when you think that 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've 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 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.

1:21:04Do 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 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 beneficiaries of the charity and speaking publicly about what they've been through.

1:21:50So they've turned their trauma from something that was a negative for them, source of pain, to a source of good. And I'm at the position, I was a long time ago, where I say I wouldn't take it back, genuinely. But I would take back, you know, I'd like to be able to run around and things like that, but as a package, I wouldn't go back and not dive in the pool. and we've had loads of beneficiaries as well who've got to that point as well because they realize 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 realizations 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 um so i believe anyone can i think like 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 i was going to start charity at that point that ended up as a realization 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 um 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 um a criticism or me of like oh you give too much you know look after yourself it's like no i am looking after myself i'm doing it it makes me feel better than not doing 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 yeah like 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 um so the mountains you know you started with snowden and then you just got bigger and yeah bigger and bigger um what what was driving you then so then you're like okay that felt so good I want more there was how healing being outside was nature um 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 are farmers spent a lot of time on the 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 like that was tough um 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 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 but um yeah and i just wanted to go higher and higher challenge myself see how far i could go and it was it was a metaphor for the climbing mountain is often used as a metaphor for life yes you know you 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'd gone to the Alps and I'd gone to Nepal hobbling up these mountains getting very strange looks from people um I thought this can help other people too yeah so that's when we started the charity initially it was just people with spinal cord injuries um 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're trying to get someone in a positive headspace So then we opened it up to anyone who's been through a trauma.

1:26:14So we have people with PTSD. We have people with trauma, you know, bereavement in traumas, 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 on a support network of people who've been through trauma and most of it is about creating a community for people who 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 it's so easy to go you you don't really understand but actually when you talk to somebody and you know they do yeah oh my god yeah so healing so powerful and often they're not telling you anything different than yeah 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 you know It's not like you come to the charity, you take advantage of the retreats or whatever, and then you leave.

1:27:40Lots of them might want to come back and mentor other people coming in. Yeah, and that's the most beautiful thing. I think that I was supported a lot through my journey by people mentoring me online, people further down the line who have become good friends. So then I felt it was a privilege to be able to pay that forward to other people. But it's because I knew how much it helped because I'd been on the receiving end. Yes. It wasn't just I'd studied it and done it. I'd 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.

1:28:17So it's an inch wide, mile deep approach. We really want to change someone's life. Yeah. 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 um and i i almost started feeling guilty that i had access to this and other people didn't so paying that forward for them but we've had three cohorts of 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 but the strength coming from their trauma it's just an incredible um thing to be a part of part of and to witness so obviously at this point you know it's 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 um enormous yeah life experience happens to you can you just talk me through where where were you at at that time so um as well as running the trips 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 um and i was on a mission to try and break a height record for someone with a spinal cord injury in in nepal um trying to break my own record but i was trying to get to 7 000 meters and i picked a mountain called himlankhamal which is really remote on the tibetan a poor border because i love the adventure side i don't just want to go and be surrounded by other western teams like this mountain hadn't been climbed in two years oh wow and um i went with a friend and and um actually another beneficiary of the charity who's an ex-paratrooper called ben who i recognized 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 plus be super fit but effectively what happened is we went and spent three weeks on this mountain and we went for a summit attempt and the snow conditions weren't good and things were against us.

1:30:52We had to turn around 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.

1:31:35And they wouldn't turn around unless I made the decision. 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 metres 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 all in the documentary. I was like, oh, so close. But no. But I felt this overriding urge that you need to turn around. Like you have to turn around. I knew. And so we did. And we were descending. and when I turned around on the slope, I realized I had no power left in my leg, my one good leg, and I was just collapsing.

1:32:16So I was having to slide down the slope on rope and then there were crevasses to make sure you stop for the crevasses, jump over them and slide. We ended up at the shoulder off the mountain 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 um he disappeared through the snow and he'd 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 you could just see his head torch he'd fallen 20 meters into into a crevasse managed to like slow himself down on the fall because it was narrow crevasse but his ice axes was like stuck in the wall so then we had to big raj the guide managed to 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 the night over the night before was now the snow was so soft that we were surrounded by crevasses so we couldn't get back to the next camp so we're stuck there and big raj raids radios unappauly 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 it's 6 000 meters it's going to go to minus 25 minus 30 at night like we've not got much chance um 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 which don'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 awake passing out waking up but trying to keep we knew that if we fell asleep we wouldn't wake up um so it was a very very long night and it got to the point of hallucinating and all these sorts of things um but we were really fortunate that the weather didn't change so it was it was minus 25 degrees but dead still if any wind no wind we'd have been in trouble because that can drop the temperature by 15 degrees instantly and then in the morning i just remember seeing the sun coming up the valley and you can watch it as it moves through the mountains you knew the temperature would as soon as it hits you would jump 20 degrees and 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 battery um so they'd got our gps locations but everyone at base camp thought we were dead because we couldn't radio them um 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 heliski pilot and a lot of them do seasons in the alps and i mean unbelievable pilots and he found a place to land and picked but couldn't land properly just dug the front ends in and we one by one took us off the mountain and obviously we gave everyone everyone at base camp was very happy because we had survived 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 my lips fell off about five times yeah wow we were pretty we were pretty hardcore i remember the first call to lois because they were we were we were out of phone signal so for like three weeks but we had a sat phone so we could send the odd message and they realized they knew what day we were supposed to summit what day we're supposed to come back down they didn't hear anything from us and i called lois day later and weirdly her and evie who are ben's partner and i think aaron's mum all had all got in contact with each other because and they'd all woken up in the middle of the night at about the same time with like 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, what, tell me.

1:36:19Of course, she was like, okay, she didn't realise what had happened. It took me quite a long time to divulge the full information. Obviously, if you've seen the film, I'll see if she knows. But the film shows, because otherwise it would be a whole film in itself, but it shows 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 in my life because we were like, am I going to see the morning? I'm like, this is a shame. It's like I've just rebuilt my life to a point where I love it more than before and I've gone and blown it.

1:36:56But fortunately I made it through. What has that taught you? Everything is a lesson to you. I can see that. What is this? Because effectively what it feels like to an outsider that it's teaching you is stop it. Stop, yeah. But that's probably not what it's told you. but it did teach me that um a i had been not slipping but like i 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 got to earn money as well because 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 not by nearly dying but um it's not just a one shot that's it please stop doing that yeah um 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 like i'm just contradicting my stuff are you allowed to tell me what you do what do you do yeah so um yeah i mean it's all been in planning stage but i'm gonna 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 um the first first ascent by a group with disability so it's more about the message it sends and putting a flag in the ground for accessible adventure and um promoting you know disability outdoors trying to encourage more people who don't think it's for them because of their certain situations that it can be too so that's going to be that's going to be an adventure But the safety team is, you know, a lot more thought out.

1:39:07You know, 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. If it's anything less than two days in a tent, she'll do it. That's the only defining factor.

1:39:36I'm with Lois. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I completely appreciate it. That's fine. But yeah, she's... Well, she'll do one night in a tent. Yeah, she'll do one night in a tent. 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. I just kind of feel like asking, what are your lasting lessons? um you know have you got a list of things that somebody watching or listening to this might might get something from yeah so i mean obviously this is so so multifaceted um 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 go through trauma from all different backgrounds and you know the we the four pillars of the charity are our four p's 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 i think purpose is built not found yes you know it's like it's a sense it's you align 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 have you ever written that down anywhere yeah yeah yeah i mean it's all of so this is what we work through the with the beneficiaries through this program and actually lois and i've just put it into a course oh great online course yeah wait just tell me how can people access that because that's so it's called new heights and it launched this week actually so um yeah which is really exciting i just we've been seeing 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 that's interesting because when you stagnate in life that's when you open yourself you're vulnerable to some of the 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 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 um so that's the four p's and that that's what we built the course around is what we work with charity it's not it's not just about pulling yourself out of the debt it's about even if you're in a good place it's like how do you get to a better place yeah you know so they're the main takeaways for me personally um gratitude of just being here how fortunate i am 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.

1:43:11And 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 humbling, sometimes burdenful. I speak to a lot of people who are going through a serious, that heavy trauma, and you go through it with them. One thing that it's 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 at the same time you carry a lot of weight from people but it over 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 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.

1:44:04I'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 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

1:44:40and how hard it is sometimes to find men who are strong and vulnerable and how helpful it is to find great role models that are. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Actually something else that's happened, like we got in a conversation with three guys in an ice cap doing this ice cap crossing first all disabled crossing an ice cap one was former professional player myself one was a former explorer adventurer and one was um training to be in the sas and we had all had spinal cord injuries darren was in a wheelchair or sit ski at the time now i was 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 yeah you know unflappable and show no weakness and now we realized that the only way for us to move forward was to be able to admit the things we can do and help each other and ask for support because that 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 you know public eye you know there's the problem is you've got people like andrew tate and yes 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 reined 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 that's a great concept me and my friend Matt have actually started a podcast with six episodes and we 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 and things they're scared of and showcasing them to the world so that younger men can have but 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 excited about that yeah um i uh often kind of wonder what i do for a living who am i what am i doing but i think the thing that's given me purpose in life is being an amplifier that's what i call myself yeah and um if you ever need any help with any of your amazing projects um i'm happy to try and help you amplify them in any way that I can.

1:47:20Thank you to being here. 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.

1:48:24And 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?