It was meant to be a dream weekend getaway for Amelia Peckham and her three friends. Just 19, the unversity friends had planned a break to the Scottish Borders, staying at a remote house in Hawick for a much-needed break from their studies.
Exploring the property, the group discovered a quad bike and eager for an adventure, decided to take it for a spin.
However, as Amelia and her friends jumped on and made their way down a dirt path, their bit of fun turned into a hideous nightmare in a matter of seconds.
‘It was a pretty remote area,’ Amelia tells Metro. ‘Ironically, we were going really slowly, but then we hit a pothole, the back wheel slid and the quadbike rolled down a hill.
The pain I felt was blinding, but my first thought was my three friends and whether they were okay. Once I saw they were, I asked Sarah, “can you do me a favour? Can you take off my boots? It’s too painful with them on” and she said “Amelia, you’re not wearing any boots.”
‘I felt like my legs were stuck high in the air, but she said they were flat on the ground.’ Sarah waited with Amelia while their other friends called 999.
It took three-and-a-half agonising hours for an ambulance to reach the hillside and assess the teenager, before an air ambulance was deployed to take Amelia to Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary.
At the hospital, doctors told Amelia she had been partially paralysed from the waist down. If the 19-year-old ever did recover some mobility, she would need a wheelchair or walking aids. Amelia was shocked, but happy to be alive.
‘It was a hideous accident,’ she explains. ‘But the crux of it was that I was driving the quad bike and three of my friends were on it. If one of the others had been hurt and not me, that would have been terrible. I think everyone around me was very worried and thought “Will she walk? Will she date? Will she be able to have children?” But I was like, “look, I can’t even wee by myself at the moment, let’s cross each bridge as we get to it.”’
Amelia spent five months in hospital and had an operation to fuse three vertebrae in her back using a bone graft from her pelvis. By the time she was discharged, Amelia was able to get around using NHS crutches and had feeling in 75% of her right leg, but no sensation at all in the back of her left leg from her waist to her foot.
Prior to the accident, she had dreamed of starting a family in her twenties but was now faced with a series of upsetting dating experiences following the accident. Each impacted Amelia’s confidence and she was soon both physically and mentally fragile. One man, who was in the Army, came back after six weeks’ service ‘confused’ why her disability hadn’t gone away. Another gave himself a ‘badge of honour’ and saw himself as a ‘hero’ for having her as a disabled partner.
‘Your twenties are hideous to navigate at the best of times,’ Amelia, now 38, recalls. ‘You don’t really know what you like or don’t like, you’re probably in a job not best suited to you, life is all a bit unsure. I tried my best to date with an open mind but dating with a disability was littered with hurdles and snide remarks. I’ve seen and heard it all, nothing shocked me.’
‘One guy said, “oh, you’re pretty fit for a cripple” and I just thought “oh, you’re pretty offensive for an able-bodied person”.’
After years of disappointment, Amelia met now-husband Andrew at her best friend’s wedding, saying that it was like ‘two jigsaw pieces coming together,’ and she knew immediately he was the one.
Now have two children together, Rufus and Ralph, 6 and 4, which Amelia has described as a ‘dream come true’ after doubts she’d be able to have children given her condition.
The accident also had a huge influence on her professional life.
‘When I was in hospital the perception of disabled people was that they stayed at home crying into cups of tea watching TV. It felt like eople like me weren’t visible anywhere – but this wasn’t a true reflection. The reality was plenty of disabled people were out there living happily, working, starting businesses and all sorts – it just felt back then that there was no space for them to be included or celebrated.
‘My whole psyche is that if anyone has an accident like mine, it won’t be seen as an ‘end’ to their ‘normal’ life, but as an adjustment to their life.’
Amelia, who had struggled with office jobs due to her mobility, got to work on planning her own business. Using her own experience of having to rely on NHS-prescribed crutches which left her feeling miserable and her hands blistered, she set to work with her mum Clare Braddell, on creating her own brand of walking aids.
Within a year of the accident, the pair launched Cool Crutches, which offered colourful, stylish and practical walking aids, and have since been used by celebrities such as Victoria Beckham, after she broke her foot earlier this year along with Prue Leith, who suffered an Achilles tendon injury.
Amelia has also donated crutches to members of the disabled community like schoolboy Tony Hudgell, who suffered horrific abuse at the hands of his birth parents which led to his legs being amputated. Tony, now 9, was gifted camouflage crutches from Amelia, who created an entire children’s range after hearing his story.
‘To be able to do that is amazing,’ Amelia, who lives in North Yorkshire, adds.
‘As long as the business is profitable and pays the bills, I’m happy. The bigger picture here is what change we can make on a wider scale.
‘I woke up from my accident and felt like I was faced with hundreds of closed doors. I want anyone who has gone through something similar today to wake up and be given choices.’
Next year will mark 20 years since the quad bike crash and Amelia still struggles with memories of the nightmare holiday. She’s particularly ‘spooked’ by roads surrounded by large drops, such as a rural tracks between her home and her grandfather’s house in Yorkshire.
And while Amelia works hard not to be over-protective of her kids, knowing how fragile life can be, she admits there is one caveat she sticks to.
‘Quad bikes are designed for farmers who use them every day. People think they’re like go karts but they’re not, they weigh so much and the steering is so sensitive and one jerk can flip the whole thing,’ she explains.
‘You hear so many horror stories about them. That’s why I’ve always said they’re [my kids] allowed on a quad bike over my dead body.’
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