A dad who broke more than 30 bones in his body in a horror cycling crash has defied doctors by returning to work just months later.
James Gray was catapulted from his bike at 70km per hour just seconds into a cycle ride on a remote countryside road in Cyprus. The 48-year-old, a Ministry of Defence firefighter who has done Iron Man contests and run marathons, was so severely injured that medics feared he may die.
He broke 22 ribs, five bones in his back and his sternum in four places. But just four months later James, from Peebles in the Borders, returned to his duties with the MoD’s fire crew in Cyprus.
The father-of-three said: “We set off at 7.57am and by 7.58 and 30 seconds I was lying at the bottom of the hill. I was going down a steep incline at about 70 kilometres an hour and clipped the kerb. I kind of cartwheeled down to where the pavement bends on to the road and projected myself into hedges. It was obvious it was serious – I was in so much pain.”
Medics rushed him to hospital where he was told he had torn his lung and needed an urgent chest drain.
The former RAF man said: “I wanted to know when the pain medication was going to kick in. The next thing a consultant lifted up my top, put iodine on my side and stuck a scalpel in my side with no anaesthetic, then he promptly put a tube into my chest.
“My chest was filling up with a mix of air and blood. It was a necessity I found out afterwards but at the time I was thinking, ‘My life was terrible 10 seconds ago and you’ve managed to make it worse.’ As if that wasn’t enough, I tested positive for Covid.”
Catching Covid meant visits from wife Tracey would only last 10 minutes and his eight-year-old son Austin wasn’t able to see his dad for more than two months. After four weeks in two Cypriot hospitals, an emergency operation and 48 hours in intensive care, James was to undergo two major operations and his wife was called to the hospital.
He said: “About eight consultants sat her down and said, ‘We want you to sign this consent form because your husband is going to go through two major operations – he is going to have this internal bleed dealt with again and we’re going to do the spinal op at the same time,’ and they said there’s a chance he might not make it out of surgery.”
James was desperate to get better but, after taking advice from a senior medic at the Army base, he was airlifted to the UK on a military aircraft usually reserved for war zones and transporting vehicles. Taken to Birmingham Queen Elizabeth hospital, consultants were undecided about whether to operate on his spine or allow the bones to begin fusing back together.
James didn’t have the spinal operation and spent five weeks in Birmingham before taking his first steps nine weeks after the crash on January 8. Although desperate to see his son, doctors said he would be unfit to travel for weeks so he spent a month with his in-laws in Clydebank.
He said: “I got discharged out of Birmingham around March 12. I was desperate to get back to Cyprus because my son was off school but I was to go and see specialists in the Golden Jubilee and Gartnavel hospitals.
“In Gartnavel I found out I had broken so many ribs, it came as a complete surprise. The only ones I didn’t break were two on my left side – I broke 22 out of 24.
“The consultants didn’t know how I had done so much damage without damaging my internal organs. They said miraculously I hadn’t damaged my heart.”
James flew back to Cyprus on April 9 and on April 11 he returned to work. Although it was a struggle, he truly realised the extent of what his family had been through when he tried to get life back to normal.
He said: “My wife had been through so much but managed to hold it all together – she’s amazing.”
One thing Tracey did insist on was that he got rid of the bike. James said: “Despite the damage I’d done to myself, the bike was fine. I sold it and haven’t missed it.”
He is already considering taking on a half marathon next year. He added: “If I do it, I’ll raise money for charity – a spinal injury one or the hospital.”
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