I was at death's door

Jacks Jackie Jackson · March 9, 2010

The night LFC played Bolton Wanderers, I have my last memory of my traumatic experience when I went back into my house. At 6.30 at home, my wife asked if I'd go in the kitchen and get her some wine. While I was in there, for absolutely no reason at all and for the first time in my life, I fainted. My head came violently into contact with a stone table we have in the kitchen and then my head smashed into the stone floor. My wife, one of the most senior nurses in Britain, came into the kitchen and saw me unconscious on the floor. She called an ambulance which took me to an A&E unit who said I needed to be in a neurosurgical unit as I had a large depressed fracture of my skull. An ambulance transferred me to the nearest place where a neuro unit had space and that was at the Royal Preston. I was actually inconscious for nine days on that unit and they proclaimed I had only a small chance of surviving the severe trauma caused by the skull fracture.

My residual fitness was stated as being the main contributary factor to my survival but when I came to, I had literally no memory and no ability to speak. Fortunately, the longer I was conscious (my wife tells me I drifted in and out for two days) the stronger my ability to speak and the better recall to my memory came back to me. The funniest thing was that a load of my relatives came to see me and the charge nurse asked me that since I was a Scouser, was I a red or a blue? I was so mentally affected, I told the guy I was a blue through and through! A f***ing blue! ME!!!

A few days later, I could hold a lucid conversation with the consultant about mountain climbing in Scotland in which I do have lots of experience and he decided I was making such good progress, he could let me go home. My home environment with my wife's enormous nursing experience, helped my rehabilitation enormously and I am getting better and better every day. I then got a Get Well Soon card from Nigel Blackwell of Half Man Half Biscuit and a Get Well Soon certificate from the entire Liverpool football team including Sammy Lee and Rafa Benitez!

It was touch and go for a while but the impact was similar to that of Richard Hammond and it seems to me now that I am heading in the same beneficial direction as he did.

BG · March 9, 2010

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