LIFE AFTER NEAR DEATH
Added: (Sat Jan 05 2019)
Pressbox (Press Release) -
Two years on from a horrific car accident, Gary McCauley recounts his remarkable recovery and rise from his hospital bed to multi-million pound company Home Repairs Group
With the National Health Service facing severe backlash and criticism, perhaps it is worth remembering just how impressive the NHS can be. I should know. Its performance after the events of 14th September 2016, which are etched into my memory, is nothing short of extraordinary.
Anyone who’s daily commute involves driving on the M25 knows it is fast, furious and dangerous. Probably everyone who does it can tell a horror story of their own near miss. But despite all the gruesome statistics about accidents, you never think that one of those near misses will ever turn into a hit. That's certainly what I thought. Until it happened to me.
A parcel delivery driver ploughed into us because he was too busy checking his mobile phone.
After the ambulance had picked me and my passenger up, deposited us into A&E, the initial prognosis was we were okay and we were able to go home.
Some three days later in the early hours, my wife found me unconsciousness on the bathroom floor, blood seeping from my mouth. I was rushed back in to hospital where they discovered I had ruptured my spleen and herniated my spine, damaging the nerves leading down my arm. Even today the intense neuropathic pain that causes can leave me in a ball of agony.
Following a prolonged period of time in hospital and a gruelling programme of rehabilitation, the economic impact was crippling, financial losses, stress and the disruption to my life, it was inevitable that I would lose my company and come very close to losing my family home, which had a significant impact on my physical and mental well-being.
I still had to provide for my young family and was determined that I would not become a member of the welfare state. Electric boiler repairs was all I knew and although I would be unable to return to manual labour, I needed to decide what was next for me.
Homerepairs.group is not a company many will have heard of, despite the fact that it has 1 million customers in Britain alone. That is because the company sells central heating policies covering almost any type of home boiler emergency one could think of, through a wide range of partners, from rental agents to heating engineers.
The company then promises to send out repair staff at the drop of a hat, employing over 2,000 subcontractors, to people with policies.
I have learnt that things happen for a reason, when you are faced with such difficulties and come out the other end, I think we can go on and achieve great things.