On St Valentine's Day (14th February 2023) I crashed my paraglider from a height of 72 feet after it collapsed in turbulent air. (see the photos gallery - button top right of helicopter picture) I broke my neck, thankfully without any nerve damage, as well as my pelvis and collapsed a lung. Within 10 minutes of a passer by's 999 call, the Wiltshire Air Ambulance helicopter was with me and its crew were attending to my needs. I was then flown to the major trauma centre at Southmead Hospital in Bristol. I'm now making a slow, but steady recovery at home.

Wiltshire Air Ambulance is a charity that provides this essential Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) across Wiltshire, Bath and surrounding areas, even coming as far north as my home town of Fairford. It needs to raise £11,000 a day to continue saving lives, but is not directly funded by the Government and receives no National Lottery funding, so relies solely on public donations. Each helicopter rescue costs in the region of £3,000.

I aimed initially to 'pay for my ticket' by raising that £3,000. That was achieved within a staggering 8 days of launching this appeal. I've now been challenged by Judy Leden MBE, one of the UK's most well-known free flight pilots, to 'put a trip in credit for the next member of our sport who might need them' or anyone else for that matter. So, as of 30th March, I've doubled the target! I plan to walk an average of 1 mile per day during the 30 days of April 2023, hoping to raise an average of £100 per day. One mile might not sound far, but with a slowly healing pelvis it is a real challenge! I walk slowly with a crutch to help take some of my weight. Pelvic injuries need exercise to help them heal so I will be helping my pelvis as well as the charity!

BBC Points West covered my story on 28th March with a summary on the BBC News website.

If you're interested in learning a bit more about my accident, here is the video of a talk I gave to local paragliding clubs on 21st March giving my assessment of what happened and why. It's certainly not meant for entertainment and does show indistinct video of me falling as well as a photo of one of my CT scans of my neck. It's aimed at fellow paraglider pilots so might be a bit technical, but there if you fancy finding out more.