Welcome To My Blog

Hi All,

My name is Matt.  I've decided to start this blog to record my journey to recovery after an incident a few weeks ago - Wed Jan 9th 2013 to be exact - and as lot of friends and family (and members of the public) have been asking about how I'm doing in hospital.

To put it in simple terms, I owe my life to three people I've never met before, but happened to be the right people, in the right place, at the right time.  I don't expect anyone to feel sorry for me, as I feel ecstatic to be alive, I only hope people see how fortunate I was to have these people come to my assistance while putting their own safety at risk.

Up until a few weeks ago I was a regular commuter from Bishop's Stortford station in Hertfordshire to Liverpool Street station in Central London.  I have worked in a Bank in various roles for 8 years since I was 21.  

On Jan 9th, I caught the train home as usual, however managed to leave my wallet, that contained my season ticket, on the train...as I went back to collect the wallet I managed to slip between the platform and the train as it was pulling away (not drunk honest!).  Unfortunately the angle of my landing meant that my legs were caught in front of the train wheels of one of the rear carriages and as the train pulled away, so did my legs.

As the train left I was left stranded on the track, bleeding heavily from the ends of my legs.  That's when my three rescuers stepped in to put tourniquets on my legs to stem the blood loss until the emergency services arrived.  I was fully conscious during the whole event, but felt no pain - Im not a very religious person, but thank God for adrenaline.

A few weeks have passed since then and I now feel this is the right time to start writing about what happened, my thoughts, feelings etc.  A number of people have suggested I do this to help understand what happened and what is going to happen, and I hope this is useful to anyone else who may know someone or be someone going through the same experience.

Here is a photo of me in my wheelchair next to my bed on Ward J2, taken on Jan 23rd.  The purple sheet behind is part of a sling the nurses used to get me from the bed to the chair.  The wheelchair is actually pretty comfy, there's an air cushion that I sit on and wheeling about is a lot easier than I thought.

The following link is to a local newspaper website that reported my story.  It goes into more depth about the event than I have here if anyone is interested in a bit of background information:

http://www.hertsandessexobserver.co.uk/News/Bishops-Stortford/Commuters-courage-after-horrific-train-injury-17012013.htm

Thanks for reading,

Matt :-)