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Hi, my name is Dave Freemantle, and I would like to tell the story of how I overcame a disability to ride a motorcycle again. It started when I was 23 years old; I lived in Liphook, Hampshire, and had a great job as an AA patrol for Surrey and NorthWest Hampshire.
On 27th October 1987 I had a very serious motorcycle accident with a tree stump. I had swerved to miss a Badger went headfirst into a ditch and wrapped myself around a tree stump (the only one for yards and yards). Luckily (as it was dark) the headlight of my Suzuki GS850 was still on and shone back up the road. This alerted an off duty ambulance driver who stopped and tended to my injuries. I had been knocked unconscious, had a fractured skull, a fractured right collarbone, six broken ribs, and a punctured right lung. I was told three days later in the Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford, that they had to slice my crash helmet right down the middle to release my head, which had swollen to the size of a medicine ball. Then came the big bombshell. I was told that I had lost the use of my right arm (wow now what?)
I had a complete Brachial Plexus lesion, (a what? I hear you ask). It’s the clump of nerves that supply the movement and feeling to the arm.
In Feb of 1988 I was referred to a Mr Birch at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, London. He operated to see how bad the damage to the arm was. It was total loss; I had pulled all the nerves out of the spinal cord. If they were snapped at any other point they could have saved it, but I did the job properly. He did transplant some nerves from my chest and redirected them down my arm to try and get something back. After months and months I could very slightly bend my arm at the elbow and move my shoulder, but had no feeling at all.
All this had lead to me loosing my job (and the ability to ride a motorcycle). After about a year the AA found me another job within the company, as an assistant radio controller at the AA operations centre in Thatcham.
After working there for five years, doing a number of different duties from telephone operator to relay intervention assistant, I started getting very sharp pain in my right arm, which was at times so bad I had to be taken home. Then in 1990 Linda and I got divorced, I then met my current wife Lorraine or Loz, as she likes to be called. We married in 1991, then in November of 1994 the pain was so bad I was home more than at work so the AA medically retired me. In the months following I had numerous hospital visits trying different treatments for the pain, and now my arm was having problems with circulation. No matter what the weather, hot or cold, my arm stayed blue or even purple.
We came to a decision in June of 1995 that the arm had to be amputated below the elbow, with the possibility of getting rid of the pain as well. Well with the sudden weight loss (I didn’t know an arm could weigh so much) the pain was still there.
I was then referred to another Hospital in London, the National Hospital for Neurology and Neuro-surgery in Queens Square, under Mr Thompson who was a Neuro-surgeon. He said he could try a fairly new operation called a Drez Legion, which is where the surgeon would take a section of bone out of the spinal column in the neck and cauterise the end of the nerves in the spinal cord. As you would guess this was a very delicate operation. I was told of the possible dangers and side effects of the operation, like paralyses from the neck down.
After very careful consideration between my wife and I we agreed to have the operation. This was the last option open to us at the time, we had three girls now and it wasn’t fair on them to see me suffer all the pain. I had at one point came very close to end it all, but with the dedication and love of my whole family and my friends I got over that. So in July of 1996 I had the operation, which lasted for eight hours.
In the months to follow as the drugs wore off I found that I had no pain, but was left with no feeling down my right side and the Fennec nerve which works the diaphragm on the right was also not working, which meant I was only working on the one lung. As the months wore on, more of the side affects became apparent, the muscles were wasting away all down the right side, causing my spine to start curving to one side and weakness in my right leg, which in turn has caused back pain when walking. But all this was the better of two evils, I could cope with this but the pain, oh no, not that, I was a zombie with all the drugs I was on.
After a couple of years of being a house husband and doing school runs, my father in law phoned to say he had heard on the radio about The National Association for Bikers with a Disability, a charity who help disabled people get back on a bike or trike.
I took the number and called the local rep in Reading to find out more. I asked if they could help me get my license back, they told me how to go about it and if I needed further help just call back. Wow! What great people, so I joined and they helped me get my motorcycle license reinstated. When the envelope dropped on my doormat with my new license I knew that getting back on a bike was coming.
At this time I couldn’t afford to buy a bike but one-day I was looking through a local paper to find a Suzuki GS 550 (in bits) for £20. I gave the number a call thinking this must be a misprint but it wasn’t, so I went to Reading with next door neighbour and his van and brought back the bike in it’s many bits. Over the next two years I rebuilt the bike with the help of a grant from the NABD for the thumb brake adaption. I have now completed the bike with conversions to suite my disability, which was the thumb brake on the left handlebar to work the rear brake, converting the foot brake to work the front and converting the throttle and switch gear over to the left. I also wanted to find a way of keeping my right arm in place on the bars. The Velcro glove idea wasn’t an option due to the amputation. I had a look through my box of additional arm bits and found something that was originally intended for holding a broom. I fitted it to the right handlebar and found that it was perfect. I also incorporated a ‘break away thread’ that would separate the clamp from my arm in the event of n accident. That was it! I thought I was going to get clobbered because of my disability but thanks to Carol Nash Insurance I got the bike insured.
All that done now the big test, the ride. Wow! It all came flooding back! I was free at long last.
After 17 years I was back on a bike. It felt fantastic! All the fears I had about control and balance were gone, I could ride again. When I got back home my wife was in the car park with a camera taking photos of me on the maiden voyage, I was grinning like a Cheshire Cat (as my wife put it I had “A six inch smile on a four inch face”) I was buzzing! And it was all thanks to NABD for the help and advice.
I now ride free and feel alive again.
Dave Freemantle
This NABD grant of £210.00 was sponsored by
a donation from
Walkers Snack Foods
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