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Dean fell in love with mountain biking back in the 1990s in Wellington – he laughingly refers to himself as an ‘early adopter’. He joined a group of mountain bike riders who enjoyed weekly rides, and it was during one of these regular outings that Dean suffered a life-changing injury.

While riding the tracks of Te Ahumairangi (formerly known as Tinakori Hill), Dean waited for two riders to clear a steep drop off.

Dean recalls that “instead of coming into the drop off with my weight back, I launched off it. I knew immediately it was a bad idea but thought I could ride it out.”

“All I can remember is my weight going forward and I knew I was in trouble.”

Dean landed on a slope in what he describes as “pretty gnarly terrain”.

The next thing Dean remembers is coming to, with another rider looking down at him. Dean says “I begged him to take my helmet off, I was in so much pain. As he released my chin strap, I started wailing more. The other cyclists packed their soft drink bags around me, so I didn’t slide further down the slope and to try and keep me still.”

Dean “can’t describe” the incredible amount of pain he found himself in. Because of the high intensity of pain, he “thought my body didn’t want to move” – he didn’t “join the dots” that his body couldn’t move.

Dean was paralysed.

Help arrives by foot and air

Dean lay there for what “felt like an eternity” as his fellow riders quickly realised that Dean was very badly injured. Unfortunately, the rugged location of Dean’s accident made it inaccessible and hard to find. That wasn’t the only challenge – due to its remote nature, there was no cell phone reception. One of the cyclists rode to the nearest house (about a 15-minute ride away) and called 111.

Dean remembers that the first responders were two Wellington Free Ambulance paramedics who “had to walk in – they knew from looking at me, they weren’t carrying me out. They assessed I was in bad shape, stabilised me, put me on a back board, and organised the rescue helicopter to airlift me out.”

The two paramedics who hiked to Dean were from our Rescue Squad. The Wellington Free Rescue Squad is a team of paramedics of all levels who are specially trained to get to, treat and extract patients in hard-to-access locations like dense bush, cliff faces and rugged coastal locations. Their training includes rope access and 4-wheel drive training, added awareness in remote medicine, and assessing and treating patients without the equipment they usually have in an ambulance.

On call 24/7, the Rescue Squad is hugely important when we think about how much our community enjoys getting out into the mountains, coastal tracks, and hills of our region.

They’re the team who can get to patients when no one else can.

The long and bumpy road to recovery

It was at the hospital that Dean learnt the full extent of his injuries: he’d broken his C2 vertebrae in his neck in two places, front and back. The C2 vertebrae is very high up on your neck (it’s almost at the base of your skull) and, along with the C1 and C3 vertebrae, controls your forward, backward and side head and neck movements.

Breaking your C2 vertebrae is rare, and it can be fatal with an ongoing prognosis that, according to Dean, is “pretty bad”.

Dean’s initial prognosis was poor and there was plenty of uncertainty in the first few days after his accident whether Dean would ever regain full functionality, including the ability to walk.

Dean recalls that “within a couple of weeks, it was clear that I’d get up again”. But surgery wasn’t an option. Dean explains that “the surgery would have had to go through my mouth. Doctors gave me an 80% chance of paralysis. The odds of surgery were too risky, and I was likely to be permanently paralysed”.

Instead, Dean spent 3.5 months in traction on his back in a hospital bed, completely immobile. Skeletal traction is used to treat broken bones and includes a system of pulleys, pins, and weights to support fractured bones as they heal. Dean also wore a halo jacket system which was designed to hold his neck still while the bones in his neck healed.

Dean remembers that the doctors “couldn’t tell me how long it’d take. I just had to lie there – lying down, not moving, for that amount of time felt like torture! Especially staring at a bloody ceiling. But I was so grateful for the support of the healthcare system as well as friends and family”.

One of the strangest things that Dean experienced was how many people came and went when he was on the ward. “I formed friendships, but I never met them face to face! It was kind of weird”, he laughs.

Reflecting on his 3.5 months in traction, Dean speaks openly and honestly about the physical and mental health challenges he faced. He felt like he ‘lost all his dignity’ as his daytime routine was exhausting, requiring 6 nurses to bathe him and 3 to toilet him. He experienced ‘ugly moods’, that were interspersed with beautiful and lingering memories of the sun warming his face as it came through the window.

Dean recalls finding night-time the hardest. Due to his physically tiring days, during which he’d nap, he’d find himself unable to sleep. It was then he’d find himself “making a lot of promises to someone, begging them to help my bones heal, and to help me get back on my bike.”

Time moved slowly on the ward, but Dean’s bones did begin to mend and heal, and he moved into the recovery stage, using a combination of physio, swimming, acupuncture, and massage.

12 months after his accident, Dean was walking again.

Back on his bike

Dean participating in the 2023 Whaka 100 mountain bike marathon.

The long-time effects of Dean’s accident include headaches and limited mobility when turning his neck, but Dean calls this “a very small price to pay” for the life he now leads. He’s also experienced lasting mental health impacts – Dean says he has an “immense fear of immobility. I’m always focused on working on my mobility and weight management. I still have a lingering, long-term fear about being injured and I struggle to allow injuries the time they need to heal”.

But regardless of this, Dean did get back on his bike. He was invited to ride in the exhibition event before the mountain biking World Cup that took place at Matairangi (Mt Victoria) on a ‘flash new SCOTT mountain bike’ that was organised by his friend at Johnsonville Cycles.

Although he’d done some training beforehand, this was his first big mountain biking event since his accident.

Dean recalls “I got booed by the crowd for walking down the root-filled and tricky sections – but I didn’t care! I was walking at that stage because I was petrified. The event gave me the confidence to get back into the sport I love which I now have a healthy respect for – I accept that there are risks.”

These days, Dean commutes to work on his bike and rides every single weekend, with a focus on long distance and endurance. He enjoys “getting out in nature, the regenerative planting and bird life of our beautiful regional biking spots”.

A set back

After his accident, Dean’s marriage ‘fell apart’. Later, he experienced an “insignificant foot injury that needed surgery and took a long time to recover from. I started to experience survivor’s guilt and a sense of overwhelming expectation that I make the most of the second chance at life I was given. Lots of things were running around in my head and I convinced myself I was being punished for not ‘fulfilling my destiny’.”

“My world just imploded.”

Fortunately, Dean had a lot of help to unpack everything he was experiencing, including from his insurance company. You can watch more about Dean’s mental health journey in this video, supplied by AIA NZ.

These days, Dean is “keen to start supporting and giving back, including raising awareness of mental health challenges we have and helping others on their journeys”.

This includes a fundraising event for Wellington Free – a mountain bike ride and BBQ! Dean explains that “I love mountain biking and the mountain biking community. A charity ride seems like a great way to give back. The time feels right.” Dean is hoping to make this an annual event that takes place on the anniversary of his accident.

Reflecting now on his Wellington Free experience, Dean says he “can never be thankful enough that the paramedics that attended did all the right things to give me the best chance possible. I don’t remember their faces, but I remember their incredibly kind eyes which were so comforting.”

“The compassion they showed me and reassurance they gave was remarkable.”

“‘Thank you’ doesn’t seem to be anywhere near enough.”

Thank you, Dean for so generously sharing your story with us. Help us be here for people like Dean when they need us the most, for free, by donating.