A man who was thrown from a motorbike after colliding with a car has told of the moment he spoke with his wife over the phone as he lay in a ditch on the roadside.
Philip Haywood was approaching the border with Scotland as he rode to work on May 19, 2022, for the first time since the pandemic. But while overtaking a vehicle on a familiar road, Philip, 54, from Berwick, said he “made a mistake” - one that would end with life-changing injuries.
“I went flying through the air and landed in a ditch on my back. I remember just lying there staring at the sky,” he said. And it was while lying on the roadside that Philip noticed his foot was at a complete right angle.
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“I thought to myself, ‘with a leg in that state, I’m not sure if it will be recoverable’. I could also see a lump sticking through my jeans, and the lump was seeping blood which was from my bone,” he said.
“I remember it all, nothing is a blur. I was lying there watching the clouds go past and time really seemed to slow down before the pain hit me. I felt quite relaxed, which must have been the adrenaline.”
But what sticks out most in Philip’s mind was the moment a driver stopped to help find his phone and call his wife, Coleen.
“I still had my helmet on, and they held the phone up to my ear. I rang her and I thought ‘I am going to have to be calm here’,” he said.
“I said ‘I have been in an accident, but I am fine, and I am just waiting for the ambulance’. I didn’t want to burden her by telling her about my injuries. My wife has Parkinson’s disease, and already has a bit to deal with, so I didn’t want to exaggerate that.”
The Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS) arrived on scene and treated Philip - administering strong painkiller to straighten his leg, before he was flown to hospital.
“The GNAAS team was so confident – they just knew exactly what they were doing. The service is just amazing, and I didn’t realise it was a charity. I kept thinking about what would have happened without it,” said Philip.
GNAAS flew Philip to the Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) in Newcastle where he stayed for three weeks and it was found that he had broken his collarbone, had two open fractures to his femurs, and his knee had exploded.
Philip added: “I had two operations while at the RVI and had a cardiac arrest while under the anaesthetic for one of them. Today, through physio, I can walk with a limp and manage around 1.5 miles. I just want to give my sincere thanks to everyone.”
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