That jump changed everything.
It was May 2017 when rugby player Ed Jackson took a dip in the pool at a barbeque party with friends in Bristol.
The Welshman jumps head first into the water, but does not notice that he is jumping into the shallow side. “It was just an accident,” says Jackson, who is currently publishing the book Lucky. “I hit the wrong side of the pool. This was just 90 centimeters deep. “
“My head was all bleeding”
Jackson continued: “I hit the bottom with my head pretty hard and broke my neck very badly. Fortunately, the others in the pool were able to save me from drowning! It looked really bad for a while. “
His father and a friend pull the victim out of the water. He injured himself on the C6 / C7 vertebrae, which carry most of the weight of the head and support the lower part of the neck. A window is also shattered, with the splinters injuring parts of his spinal cord. ”I lost my mobility and all feeling. And my head was all bleeding, ”Jackson says of the accident.
“It’s unbelievable how the brain works”
First of all, he is in shock after the accident. His career as a rugby player is over. But Jackson immediately regained hope. “It’s amazing how the brain works,” he says. “You have these survival strategies, you try to distract yourself and look at things from scratch,” says Jackson.
When he was 23 years old, he lost his best friend in an accident. This trauma, he believes, prepared him for the time after his own accident: “I think that’s under the surface. Our brains can handle such things so that it doesn’t destroy you. Because life goes on. “
«I am lucky to be alive»
After countless operations and rehabilitation – he did up to five hours of physio a day with his wife Lois – Jackson fought his way back to life. And he is slowly learning to walk again: “When I was able to stumble around again and walk from the bedroom to the kitchen, I realized that it made me very happy. I think this gratitude makes you happier every day, because you can simply consider yourself lucky that you are alive. “
He struggles so hard that with the help of sticks and rails he can climb Mount Snowdon in Wales. He later goes on treks in the Himalayas and the Alps. He now sees his accident as lucky: “It made me realize that I can do a lot more than I once thought. I was able to start all over again and discover who I really am and what I really like. My lesson: you don’t have to live the life you are told. You can go out and live the life you want. “