Back in 2017, Potters Bar’s Rae Saleem was told he would never walk again after a horrific bike accident. Against all odds, he recovered, and is now giving back with a gym challenge for Comic Relief.
“I was on a mission to try and lose weight,” he told the Welwyn Hatfield Times as he relived the day his life changed forever.
“I got myself a bike and obviously wasn’t very good at it. I went on a bike ride and I was going downhill, probably a little too fast, tried to go onto the pavement and clipped the kerb.
“I veered off, the bike went into a bush, I went over the handle bars and headfirst onto the concrete. My body came over my head and broke my neck.”
Rae had broken four vertebrate which had go into his spinal cord. He was instantly paralysed. He was also left with serious head and facial injuries, but lucky would be on his side as a nurse came to his rescue.
“All I could see was blood oozing out and it was pretty horrific, but I don’t think I quite realised the severity of it,” he said.
“You think, you fall off a bike and you get back on it, but it suddenly dawned on me that I couldn’t move. From that point onwards I was in and out of consciousness and just wondering how I’m going to get out of this.
“It was rural roads and there was no one there, but luckily a lady walked up and the godsend for me was that she was a nurse.”
Rae was in a crumpled heap and desperate for the nurse to move him off his neck. But, as he complained of pins and needles, she knew what had happened and that he couldn’t be moved.
“I think I passed out shortly after getting to Barnet Hospital, but I remember the doctors telling me that the third and the fourth vertebrate control your diaphragm. I couldn’t breathe and I was close to dying, so I was lucky the ambulance came when it did,” Rae said.
“They quickly realised they couldn’t do anything for me. I had facial injuries, my skull was broken, so was my nose and cheekbone, and then there was the spinal injuries.
“I was taken to the major trauma unit at Royal London Hospital, but I still didn’t know the severity of what had happened, and all I remember was my family coming in and crying.
“At that point I hadn’t seen myself, all I could see was the white ceiling, but they could see my injuries and all the machines plugged in.”
Multiple operations on Rae’s neck, back, head and brain followed, with each one posing a major risk to his life.
“At that point it was all so surreal,” he recalled.
“My wife and mum were signing death papers before every operation because I was so unstable.
“It was the trauma for them as well as me, and during this time I was being told how bad my injuries were. After all my surgeries I started to make my recovery.”
He began to eat and breath unaided, but Rae was told he would not be able to walk again and starting planning for a new life in a wheelchair. That was until a glimmer of hope inspired his miraculous recovery.
“About a month after my operations, I looked down one day and I saw my toes starting to wiggle,” he remembered.
“It was like an oasis, a mirage. Is that really happening? It was a miracle.
“I couldn’t move and I was thinking this is going to be my life now, but that moment gave me real hope and the spark I needed.
“I kept pushing myself and my legs came back and then both my arms. I trained myself how to do everything again, walking, sitting up.
“My head knew what to do, but my body didn’t.”
Rae was moved to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and started doing physio during the day and gym work by night.
The challenges of learning to walk again would not be his last test, as he continued: “By the time I came out of the spinal unit I was walking, and it made me wonder what I was capable of, but I had so many other challenges.
“I’m the only adult male in my family, I was working freelance before the accident and then couldn’t work afterwards, so money was a real problem.
“I was depressed, I couldn’t provide for my family and my wife had to take on everything. We were getting evicted because we couldn’t keep up with rent. We went through a lot in that time.”
Rae’s life is now back on track and his new lease on life has seen him take on multiple sporting challenges for charity.
That included Comic Relief for Red Nose Day 2021, as he set himself the 4x4x48 challenge, the equivalent of running two marathons in the same number of days with just five hours of sleep.
He’s back for Red Nose Day 2022, taking on a gym-based quadrathlon at Inspire All in Furzefield, where much of his rehabilitation took place.
"I will be rowing 10,000m, travelling the same distance on a cross climber, cycling 90km and doing a half marathon on a treadmill,” Rae explained.
“The four challenges represent the four different key need areas Comic Relief works to tackle - homelessness, domestic abuse, poverty and mental health problems.
“I’m still not fully healed. My right side is weaker than my left, I still get spasms and I hobble when I get out of bed, but I just want to help and inspire others to discover their potential. If I can do that after not being able to walk, then you can do anything.”
To donate to Rae and Red Nose Day 2022, visit www.justgiving.com/fundraising/rae-saleem-quadchallenge.
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