I was taken to the Northampton General Hospital on Glasgow Coma Scale 7 and then to the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford, a centre of excellence, where my pupils became fixed and dilated at 1.00 am on Monday morning. I had emergency surgery to remove 80% of the blood clot but remained in Intensive Care for nearly four weeks. There were three unsuccessful attempts to wean me off the ventilator but the fourth attempt worked due to the expertise of a wonderful New Zealand nurse called Nicky. Four weeks later the part of my skull which had been removed and kept on ice was replaced and successfully fused to the rest of my skull. I was sent back to my local hospital but remained in a coma for three months during which time I got Stevens Johnston syndrome due to incorrect medication and again nearly died. At my parents' insistence I was transferred to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, another centre of excellence, where they stabilised me and my coma started to "lighten". I gradually came out of deep coma three months after the accident but was semi conscious for another six months or so back in the local hospital. I was on lots of drugs and very drowsy, fed by gastrostomy tube into my stomach, incontinent and could not move. I did not start to recover until fifteen months after the accident when I went to Chailey Heritage near Brighton, England, yet another centre of excellence.

I am now in a rehab centre with some education at Banstead Place in Surrey and having only been able to click with my tongue for three years I am finally able to speak a little. My speech is improving all the time with the help of the speech therapist, Pippa. My physio, Brigitt, is helping me to regain trunk control and getting me to stand regularly. My tutor, Gill, is helping me to regain word and number power. One day I hope to surf the net as quickly as everyone else! I go home every weekend and love to be with my family and see my friends. I still go down to the Skate Park but a lot of my friends are off in cars to clubs and parties and have girlfriends. Some are away at university. I would consider I have recovered about fifty percent so far.

I have been offered a place at the National Star Centre in Cheltenham - a college for 100 students with physical disabilities and we are awaiting the outcome of funding requests.

My family has received some negative reactions from professionals and others but if we listen to them I would not make any more gains. I am determined to do better and eventually return home more independent and live again with my twin brother Jonathan, older brother Simon and see more of my sister Joanna and her fiancé Dan.

Keep on pumping the pump and the water eventually…….. comes out of the well!

I now have a Message Board so drop me a line or e-mail me at greg.whorwood@lineone.net My twin brother Jonathan, my sister Joanna and me about two years after my accident when I was still very thin and weak but improving all the time. The tube had been removed from my stomach, I had become continent and was off all drugs!