After my sister had a serious car accident, I raised money for the service that saved her by walking through the UK’s national parks. Out in the wild, I discovered a new path
I had a strange kind of premonition, even before my dad spoke on that day in 2016, that something was very wrong. He said my sister Katie had been in a serious car accident, and that I needed to get to the hospital quickly. She had been airlifted to hospital in Plymouth. I went there to join our parents and my other sister, Meg. It became apparent very quickly just how bad it was. Katie, 21, had suffered head and abdominal injuries and it wasn’t clear that she would survive the first night. She was in intensive care for two weeks – and then the tube that was feeding her ruptured and she went into cardiac arrest.
It happened at night, and again, I got a call saying I needed to get to the hospital quickly. I was 23, a confident young man with a bit of an ego, but there in the waiting room, I had my first ever panic attack. We were called into a room and told she probably wasn’t going to make it, and to say our goodbyes. But again, she pulled through.
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