Martin Hibbert, the closest person to the Manchester Arena bomb to survive, has described his four-year journey of recovery as he prepares to climb Africa's highest peak.
In a moving interview on BBC Radio 4, the dad, 44, who, along with his daughter Eve suffered life-changing injuries, spoke of how lucky he is to be alive after ‘feeling himself dying’ on the floor of the City Room following the horrific terrorist attack in May 2017 which took 22 lives.
The football agent from Bolton suffered injuries compared to ‘being shot 22 times at point blank range’, including damage to his spinal cord which left him paralysed from the navel down, and was warned that he might never walk again.
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But, thanks to a radical therapy programme in Australia, which ‘retrained his brain’ to bypass the damaged nerves, he has made incredible progress.
Asked if he had come to terms with what happened, Martin said: “People ask me that a lot.
“I think going back to that night when I was injured - I was conscious for the majority of the time after being blown up on the floor - I didn’t think I was going to make it out.
“I spent an hour watching my daughter die in front of me, I could feel myself dying as well.
“I didn’t think I’d survive so to wake up in intensive care two weeks later to be told ‘you’ve survived but you’ve got a spinal cord injury and it’s probably looking like you’re not going o walk again’, I remember saying at the time, well I’m alive, I’ll take that. There were 22 families who weren’t as lucky.”
Martin said people often react with ‘disbelief’ to his positive attitude, but added: “That’s what got me through, the fact that I’ve survived."
Martin added: “I’m just so thankful to be alive. For that hour to be in the aftermath of what happened in the City Room.
“I didn’t think I was going to get out. I lost so much blood, my injuries were really bad. To be told ‘you’re alive and Eve is still alive, but to you’ve got a spinal cord injury’, I got my head around it pretty quick to be fair.”
Alluding to ‘dark days and bad days’, he said ‘everybody has that’ and said the support of friends and family had been key, adding: “There are so many people who need my help, I don’t have time to wallow in self pity.”
In June, Martin plans to scale Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa, with a support team including Stuart Wildman, a consultant nurse who cared for Martin in the Major Trauma Unit of Salford Royal hospital.
During the same interview, Stuart described Martin as an ‘inspiration’, commended his ‘drive and determination', and recalled how, after seven days in hospital, Martin wanted to go to St Ann’s Square to pay his respects to those who had lost their lives.
Recalling how, when Martin came down to his ward he was suffering with ‘horrendous’ shrapnel wounds as well as his spinal cord injury, he added: “You can just see where he started to where he is today, he’s an inspiration.”
Martin hopes to raise a million pounds for the Spinal Cord Association.
On his mission, which will see Martin scale the peak on a specially adapted wheelchair dubbed a mountain trike, he told the programme: “Daily life feels like climbing a mountain when you have a spinal cord injury and are in a wheelchair.”
Describing his quest to raise money for the Spinal Cord Association, for which he is a trustee, he said he also wanted to educate people on what life is like with a spinal cord injury, which he compared to 'climbing a mountain every day'.
“I consider myself lucky,” he said.
“I went to Salford Royal and had people like Stuart around me, I went to the spinal unit in Southport. I had the help and support of the Spinal Injuries Association.
“But it wasn’t until I became a trustee that I found out that wasn’t the case for everybody.”
Martin said he wants to ‘start a revolution’ to say ‘this isn’t good enough’ when it comes to the lack of support for patients with spinal injuries and, through lobbying the government, get things changed.
“The odds are certainly stacked against us,” he added.
“But they have been stacked against me ever since I was injured in 2017. The paramedics didn’t think I’d survive the journey to hospital.”
