“I was left for dead at the side of the road”
Former Army Major, Cahal was cycling from London to Dublin when he was hit by a speeding driver who fled the scene and left him for dead.
The police told me the car that hit me was doing at least 70 miles per hour.
The driver was uninsured.
When Cahal came round, he realised that his injuries were serious. “I was lucky to survive being hit by a car. Then I was lucky to survive until the emergency services got there. And then I was lucky to survive 22 hours of operations in a 48-hour period.”
Following the life-changing event and the days of operations, Cahal faced a tough, uphill struggle to recover.
“My back was broken and my pelvis had an open-book fracture. And then my right leg had been kind of rebolted together.” He also required a skin graft on his leg and was told that if it wasn’t successful, he would face more operations and the real possibility that he might lose his leg.
“I can’t really properly convey to you the amount of physical effort that that required,” Cahal adds, “and the amount of pain that you’re going through.”
Recovery was a long and difficult journey. But Cahal didn’t face it alone. MIB was there to support him – doing what it exists to do: helping people affected by uninsured and hit-and-run drivers rebuild their lives.
“MIB always listened,” Cahal says. “From the beginning, they engaged a medical coordinator to assess my situation. They organised the treatment and all the rest of it with specialists.”
“MIB gave me the best chance of success,” he says, “and that was a huge part of my recovery.”
Despite everything, Cahal was determined to keep moving forward. Ironically, while he could barely walk, he was able to cycle. "The secret was to get going and not to stop. I think my mindset was to look at what I was able to do and not to focus on what I couldn’t do.”
Looking back, Cahal is clear about the impact support made. "I wouldn’t have made the level of recovery I have without MIB. Would I have survived? I don’t know.”
With determination, resilience, and the right help at the right time, Cahal did more than survive. He rebuilt his life – and found his way back onto the road once again.
