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I remember the buzz of my first bike, a Gilera, at the age of 16. Never in, always out - freedom. Moved on to my pride and joy a couple of months later, a brand spanking new BSA Beaver. Loved that bike to bits.
Three months on, I was driving home from my girlfriend’s when a car pulled out of a junction, that was the start of all my problems.
Compound fracture of the tibia and fibia, right leg, hospitalised for three months, daily visits to theatre to have gas gangrene treated. Eventually got home with external fixator, then various casts. It was over a year before I was finally rid of hospital fittings!
I did have a couple of bikes after that, but I had really lost all confidence, but the yearning to be on a bike stayed with me.
I buried myself into setting up my own business, got married, had kids. Then in 1992 started getting pain in my leg again. X-rays and scans showed a low grade infection in the bone which had seemingly been there since the trauma of the accident. Another two years of operations and external fixators, but in the end there was nothing more they could do, the decision to amputate from the knee was taken.
As fate would have it, the same surgeon who treated me on the night of the accident was to amputate my leg and it was fourteen years to the day of my accident.
Devastation does not even begin to describe how I felt. But I moved on again, self employed and getting to grips with the tag of disabled. A couple of years ago I invested in a YZ 125 motocross. Me, my mate Paul and son David took off most Sundays mucking about bings and quarries and loved it.
Paul had been into bikes for a while and had a YZF Tcat when I first met him. We got talking about how I missed being out on the road and the freedom you only get on a bike.
My wife said if I booked a CBT, she’d take it as well and give me moral support. She knew I really wanted to get back on bikes but I didn’t have the balls to do something about it. I went and did it, got the CBT, one week of lessons, passed my test, fired in to buy a Faser 600.
Not to let me down, my leg flared up, abscesses, back in hospital, another operation and all I could think about was my bike waiting to be picked up. My mate picked it up for me and it was there waiting when I got home. It took me a while to get my confidence built up but I got there in the end. The only thing I was really concerned about was the brake. I couldn’t feel how much pressure I was applying, not easy with a prosthesis in the way.
That’s when someone told me about the NABD. I got in touch and you came up trumps and sent me a Thumbrake. But in the last six months, I’ve been in and out of hospital with stump problems.
My Thumbrake is now fitted, I’ve only been out a couple of times (the weather’s not exactly reliable at this time of year). It’s like night and day, I’m in total control, confident and I’m going to take my first passenger soon, my wife.
Thank you NABD for all your help.
Dave Wilson
This NABDgrant of £210.00 was sponsored by donations from the Pint Pullers Mcc& the CMA (Norfolk)
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