TONY’S STORY

You’ll probably hear Tony Kane before you see him. He’s the vibrant Spinal Injuries Scotland volunteer whose arrival usually precedes laughter from patients and staff at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital’s spinal unit. But how does a man who can’t walk keep his spirits, and the spirits of others, so high?

Here, the 35-year-old from Wishaw, Lanarkshire shares his backstory, and the secret to winning at life after a spinal cord injury.

In 2005, Tony was driving a fully-loaded dumper truck around a building site. While manoeuvring the machine it suddenly plunged forwards over a blind ledge. The labourer, who was strapped into his seat, tumbled down the ledge until the force of the six-tonne truck rolled on top of him and broke his neck.

Opening up about his life-changing workplace injury, Tony “just knew” he’d never walk again. “I remember arguing with my pal at the time”, he said. “I kept telling him it felt like my legs were above my head and he said ‘What are you on about, they’re where they should be - you’ll be fine’. But it was in that moment I just knew I’d never walk again.”

Tony was right.

The crash broke his C6 and C7 vertebrates resulting in loss of movement and feeling in his legs. However it also fractured his C1the tiny bone that connects the skull with the spine. This affected the mobility of his hands but, mercifully, because it did not break fully Tony maintained the use of his arms.

Sadly, at the time, Tony did not see the silver-lining and sank into a deep depression. He said: “I remember leaving the hospital at the time and just being angry. I was angry for the accident happening. Angry I couldn’t walk. Then I’d simply get angry at myself for being angry. I was stuck in a vicious cycle and I stayed there for two years where I didn’t go out and didn’t see people.”

To this day, Tony doesn’t know what changed in him – but something did. And it “dragged his butt out of the depression” and one morning he remembers just waking up feeling like a new man wanting to seize the day. He sprang into his chair, he reached out to friends, he reached out to Spinal Injuries Scotland, he swapped alcohol for the gym, he swapped sitting in front of the TV to getting outdoors with his dog Chico, he joined a wheelchair rugby team, he started going to Ibrox again to watch Rangers play, he attended concerts again like Avicii at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow.

Tony says that for him, what he realised then was that the only thing that had been holding him back was himself.

He said: “To this day I still feel lucky - but I think a lot of it is about choice.