Insight: Sept 4

This week on Insight “Rebuilding Your Life” explores how people rebuild their lives after catastrophic injuries.

Life can change in an instant – and in that instant, many hopes and dreams can be cruelly snatched away. When someone is hit with catastrophic injuries, how do they even begin to move forward and rebuild their life?

Jaimen Hudson was a sporty 17-year-old with the world at his feet when an off-road motorbike accident in 2008 left him a quadriplegic.

“I lived for the outdoors,” Jaimen tells Insight’s Jenny Brockie. “And to have that all taken away from you in one foul swoop is quite a wake-up call.”

With a similar passion for the outdoors, Sam Bloom loved mountain biking, running, surfing and playing soccer. It was a lifestyle she enjoyed with her three active sons – but one that was turned upside during a family holiday in Thailand.

“I just pulled a sheet over my head and burst into tears … I didn’t react very well at all,” recalls Sam, when told by doctors she’d never walk again.

But Sam’s turning point and road to recovery would come from the most unlikely of sources: a baby magpie chick called Penguin.

At 21, Louise Ellery suffered a serious brain injury, smashed pelvis and broken ribs after a car accident. The former model and ballroom dancer was on life support for a week and lost her spleen. She also had to learn to walk, talk and eat again.

“I loved ballroom dancing and I thought if I couldn’t dance, what’s the point in living?” Louise says.

It took 10 years for Louise to accept her disability.

Like Louise, Nick has achieved more than he could have hoped after suffering a devastating injury. He was seven years old when he became blind from an injury. His last memory of sight was the vision of his mum’s face.

In the 50 years since, Nick has reached the summit of Kilimanjaro, trekked the Simpson Desert, climbed to Everest base camp, ran the New York Marathon three times and also represented Australian at the Paralympics.

8.30pm, Tuesday on SBS.