When Fergus Farrell woke up after having surgery in Dublin’s Mater Hospital in late October 2018, he could not move his feet. He could not feel them, either. In fact, it seemed as if they did not belong to him. It was like someone’s else’s feet had been put into his bed and his own had gone missing, he says.
The then 39-year-old former rugby player from Athenry was in terrible pain, even worse than what he had experienced when his spinal cord had almost been severed a day earlier while lifting heavy equipment at home.
“My spinal cord was hanging on by a thread, that’s why I had to have the operation within 12 hours [of the accident],” he says. “Afterwards, he remembers drifting in and out of consciousness and staring at his legs, willing them to move. They didn’t. By then, he knew he was in serious trouble.
He was trying, too, to make sense of what his surgeon was telling him. When he asked if he had any questions, the Co Galway man looked at his legs, then up at the doctor and said: “Is this the way I’m going to be?” He recalls him putting his hand on his shoulder and saying: “Sorry, Fergus. You have been very, very, unlucky.”
His first thought was that he would never be able to walk his then seven-year-old daughter Aimee down the aisle. Then his mind turned to his five-year-old son, Bradley, and how he would never play soccer with him. His seven-month-old son, Felim, came into his mind next and this was followed by regret upon regret. Being so “obsessed” with his coach business and managing finances, he realised he had not taken the time to build a relationship with his little boy.
“I had let the business become more important than my infant son. I had been so busy with everything else in my life – business, employees, managing finances – that I hadn’t had time to develop that bond. That realisation really hit me hard. I was disgusted with myself and, to this day, it bothers me. What an awful way I had been living my life. On the outside, I had it all: a big business, a nice family, a good car, and a new house under construction. However, I had no relationship with my baby son. That was a horrible recognition.”
The accident that medical experts believed would rob him of his ability to walk again occurred one Friday morning. Fergus who represented Connacht rugby at U18, U19, and U20 as well as being capped for the Irish Youths at U18 level, was preparing to do a bus run to Belfast. As he had time to spare, he decided to move a heavy metal work bench in his yard. Being 6’2″ and well built, and having the assistance of his mechanic, meant it should have been an easy task. However, he felt a pinch in his back as he lifted the bench, so he dropped it, then re-lifted it. That was when he heard a bang. He likens it to a gunshot in his back. The pain was excruciating. “It was like someone was pouring acid all over my body. All my nerves were dying.”
Felt devastated
His wife, Mandy, and his family were very concerned about him. He had been given a zero per cent chance of walking again and he felt devastated.
“I was completely reliant on the nurses and aides. I just felt useless. And though I don’t think I thought of the word ‘dependent’ at the time, I was utterly dependent. But lying there and doing nothing wasn’t in my DNA.” So, he began to fight his way back to good health.
All his life, he had used visualisation to help him achieve his goals. He did not even know then there was a name for this technique whereby you vividly imagine desired outcomes, in his case, originally, improving his rugby game or buying his first bus. Now, as he lay in his hospital bed, he would use this process to help him stay positive and rebuild his life.
“This was my time to fight, to fight for myself. I was going to have to start small. I didn’t picture myself jumping up and walking out the door. That was something I knew could never happen. I visualised myself moving my big right toe. I don’t know why I decided to focus on that toe, but I did.
“There was a circuit board behind me on the wall, a switch on the wall in front of me, and a light overhead. I started visualising that my brain was a circuit board and I needed to make a connection between my brain and my toe through my broken spinal chord, to move my toe, flick the switch, and turn on that light. That’s what I kept visualising. When I realised the visualisation hadn’t worked, I didn’t stop. I just kept doing it. I knew there was no point lying there, feeling sorry for myself.”
Prior to being transferred to University Hospital Galway, after spending 12 days at the Mater Hospital, Fergus was told he would be put on a waiting list for spinal cord injury rehabilitation at the National Rehabilitation Hospital (NRH ) in Dun Laoghaire. Day to day, there were constant challenges, unrelenting pain, intense physiotherapy and the ensuing exhaustion, and having two large clots in his lungs. He experienced “massive” convulsions, suffered from insomnia, had to wear a nappy, and take a cocktail of drugs. The ever present thought that he might never walk again was always lurking in the background, too.
One morning three weeks after his accident had occurred, he was visualising regaining power in his feet. He looked down at the big toe on his right foot and thought he saw it move. “Suddenly, something seemed and felt different. I’d say my heart skipped a beat.” But then he feared he might have been hallucinating. He told one of the hospital staff and demonstrated the movement. “It was the tiniest flicker of motion, barely millimetres. But it did move under my control. It was a gain and once you have a gain, it’s very easy to keep driving yourself.” Fergus was overjoyed and his consultant, Dr Cullen, who described the incident as “most unexpected” shared in his delight.
Steely determination
His physical progress slowly continued at the NRH. “I arrived flat on my back, paralysed from the waist down, but quickly realised how lucky I was. I was in a bad way, but I was one of the best [there]. However, any fantasy I had of a miraculous recovery was quickly dispelled.” A report from his medical team stated he would be a wheelchair-user for life.
Yet Fergus refused to give up on his dream of walking again. He continued to make progress thanks to physiotherapy, a steely determination, and the support of his wife, Mandy (a nurse ), and his loving family. However, sometimes the loss he experienced and the challenges of adjusting to a new life took their toll.
“On the outside, I was very positive but all the time I was parking things – my business and financial worries and the emotional and mental stuff.” He found the nights very lonely and despite being exhausted, he could not sleep. “It was during that time that I did one of the stupidest things I have ever done in my life, and probably one of the main reasons I am now divorced. I signed up to a dating website and started chatting online to women. Looking back my head was all over the place. I was on a lot of drugs, including morphine-based painkillers. Maybe I just wanted a distraction and to talk to somebody who didn’t realise I was paralysed from the waist down.”
He was in a “bad place” mentally and his brain felt like it would “explode”. One day, he felt totally defeated. “My marriage, my business, and my mind were unfixable, I felt. I had no more fight in me”. So, he wrote farewell letters to his family before heading for Dun Laoghaire pier. But something stopped him from taking that final step. “Maybe I still held onto the hope that I could save my marriage or maybe I just hadn’t reached rock bottom yet.”
While he achieved his goal of walking again and walked the 206 kilometer journey from his home in Athenry to Dublin a year after his accident to raise funds for the NRH – there have been dark moments along the way. A few months after being discharged from hospital, he planned again to take his own life. This time, his concerned family alerted the Gardai, and a vigilant Garda, Ger Brady, who knew him from rugby circles, went to his aid. Fergus realised he needed professional help and admitted himself to the local mental health unit and began his journey towards healing.
Today, he is grateful to be alive. He is a mental health and disability advocate as well as a keynote speaker who gives motivational talks on health and safety. He returns to his first love, bus driving, occasionally. He continues to embrace challenges and attempted to row across the Atlantic Ocean with the former professional rugby union player turned extreme adventurer, Damian Browne to raise awareness about spinal cord injury research in October 2022. While Damian, a fellow Galwayman, spent a gruelling 16 weeks at sea and become the first person to row from New York to Galway, Fergus unfortunately was unable to complete the challenge due to health concerns. He was airlifted from the vessel two weeks into the trip. Afterwards, he experienced a huge sense of failure and disappointment despite knowing he had made the right decision to come home.
He sought counselling to help him cope and that proved to be the key to his emotional recovery. “Ann Kelly at ProConsult was absolutely phenomenal. Meeting her and committing to therapy was my game-changer,” he says in his book. His cats and dogs are a huge comfort to him and help stave off loneliness, to which he is prone, when his children are not with him.
And what is his new goal? “To walk across America,” says the man who redefined what it truly means to be strong and brave and face down adversity.
Fergus Farrell’s book, “Rebuilding a Man” is on sale from local bookshops at €18.99.
