George Peasgood has a matter-of-fact reply to a query about his bountiful positivity. “I’m higher off at present than I used to be on 2 October.”
It is a life-affirming assertion to which there isn’t a different response than to agree. That was his twenty seventh birthday, a day that ought to have been one in every of celebration however was as a substitute one in every of nice misery and concern, his household by his hospital bedside instructed to count on the worst.
The day earlier than, British Paralympic triathlete Peasgood was out for a motorcycle journey together with his girlfriend Frankie Hall, testing himself on sprints, when a freak accident noticed his foot slip out of the pedal, hurling him over his handlebars at pace.
Suffering seizures on the roadside and bleeding from his ears, he was blue-lighted to hospital the place he was identified with a brain injury, particularly a grade three diffuse axonal injury, and entered into the deepest stage of coma. To this present day he has no recollection of the crash.
“Everything was contact and go,” Peasgood tells BBC Sport.
“Frankie and my mother and father have been instructed many occasions not to count on me to survive, which should have been actually onerous for them.
“I do get upset typically – they went by all of that.”
Peasgood was in a coma “for about seven or eight weeks”, however the flip of a brand new 12 months marked renewed hope.
By January he was beginning to retain info. “The first time I remembered one thing from the day earlier than was 4 January,” he says. “On 13 January – 13 being my fortunate quantity – I felt like I’d woken up from a dream.
“Everything from October, November, December up till 13 January felt like a dream.”
His reminiscences of the times, weeks and even months main up to his crash are few and much between – a Coldplay live performance, a run round London’s Hyde Park with Frankie, his cousin coming spherical on the morning of that fateful day. But new reminiscences shall be made and Peasgood is firmly trying to the longer term.
Six months and two days after his crash, Peasgood – who received Para-triathlon silver and Para-cycling bronze at Tokyo 2020 – left hospital in April and is now dwelling at The Get Busy Living Centre in Leicestershire, a rehabilitation facility established by the Matt Hampson Foundation.
There, his days are a hive of exercise, shifting in the direction of his purpose of getting his “life again”.
“Every day I’ve a fitness center session, I’ve sports activities remedy, after which I’ve a physio session – so three hours of intense rehab. Each week I even have a counselling session,” he says.
“I stay in one of many lodges in the meanwhile, so I’ve to make dinner for myself, I’ve to get modified on my own, have a bathe, do all the things on my own.”
WARNING: Some readers might discover the subsequent picture distressing
Peasgood’s life has been one in every of adversity and challenges to navigate. Run over by a ride-on lawnmower as a two-year-old, he had 15 surgical procedures on his left leg, together with complete leg reconstruction, earlier than taking over Para-triathlon.
Yet with out these previous hurdles, he does not suppose he can be right here to inform his story.
“[The crash has] pronounced my incapacity from earlier than, however I feel that is the rationale I’m alive, as a result of I’ve had to overcome issues earlier than,” he says.
“I’ve discovered to be so cussed, to by no means take no for a solution. And I simply need my life again, the best way it was earlier than my accident. That’s all I need.”
In latest weeks and months, he has run outside, swam in hydrotherapy periods and cycled on the again of a tandem bike, however whether or not a return to triathlon is on the playing cards in the longer term stays to be seen.
“I’m not excited about competing in any respect. At the second, I simply need to have the option to stay the very same as earlier than. The purpose in the meanwhile is simply to get my life again, all the things outdoors of sport, however I’m using sport to get there.
“I used to be as shut to demise as might be, so each day is a optimistic. Every day is a step ahead from there.”
