From Stuart Cunliffe's blog comes an inspiring story about surviving shock and despair, about overcoming difficulties and about the hope generated for many with any life well-lived.{A year ago] I wrote here about Daniel James, paralysed from the waist down after an accident in a rugby scrum, who committed suicide, and Matt Hampson, confined to a wheelchair and needing a ventilator to breathe after an accident in a rugby game, who does charity work, coaches youngsters, writes a newspaper column and has his own website.
Now here's a story of another young man injured in a rugby game that will warm the cockles of your heart.
Matt King, a 17-year-old from a village near Biggleswade in Bedfordshire, was 20 seconds into his first professional rugby match when another player accidentally kneed him in the neck. "I knew I had broken my neck straight away," said Matt. "The paramedics were asking me to move my toes and I couldn't. It was completely terrifying. "My first thought was 'Let me die,' because my vision of what my life would be like was awful. That was the worst time of my life. I felt and experienced things that I wouldn't wish on any human being."
Matt is permanently paralysed from the neck down and depends on a ventilator to breathe.
During nine months in Stoke Mandeville Spinal Unit he realised he was still young and decided if he was to lead a meaningful life he needed an education. He returned to school and gained A grades in A-level history and AS geography. He went to Hertfordshire University and graduated with a first class law degree.
He became the first quadraplegic to complete the New York Marathon, using an electric wheelchair with a steering device he controlled with his chin and raising £10,000 for charity.
Now 22 years old, Matt has been offered a training contract with a top London firm of solicitors specialising in personal injury claims. Said Julian Chamberlayne, the firm's training principal: "The way he has overcome his disability is incredible and his razor-sharp intellect will make him an asset to the firm." He starts there next year after he finishes a legal practice course at the university.
Says his mother Glenda: "We never believed he would get this far. We are very proud of him. He never fails to amaze us with what he's going to do next."
