Former paramedic paralysed in crash says pole dancing helped her recovery

A horrifying car crash in which she was a passenger in a car driven by her then fiancé left her with such catastrophic injuries doctors gave her a one per cent chance of survival. She was just 25. But that was 23 years ago and the former paramedic has now written her autobiography with the help of Yorkshire Post columnist Becky Bond.

Unbroken: The Woman Who Walked Again takes readers on an emotional journey from that fateful day Georgina, known as George, has dubbed ‘‘Dead Day’’ to now.

“For the last 23 years I’ve celebrated Dead Day; the day he – my former fiancé – put me in a wheelchair and inadvertently turned my life around,” says George, who lives in Eldwick, near Bingley.

But the book is not just about her physical battle to survive and live an independent life, it is about her emotional journey and also that of those closest to her, from her parents and brother James, to the strangers who saved her life and the army of medics and carers who have helped her since. Some of it she didn’t even know until Becky interviewed those involved.

George was working as a paramedic in Liverpool when the crash happened near Keighley on the August Bank Holiday in 1998.

She suffered a broken neck, broken leg, torn liver, kidney and bladder, shattered pelvis and punctures in both lungs. She was resuscitated five times after her heart stopped. Now she relies heavily on a wheelchair to get around.

“My family was told I had just a one per cent chance of pulling through and if I did then I would never walk again.” But George and her parents were determined to beat this dire prognosis.

“I remember in hospital feeling a bit sorry for myself and say ‘what if?’ to my mum. She tore a strip off me and I never felt sorry for myself again.”

She spent 18 months in hospital, first at Airedale, then Leeds General Infirmary before being transferred to Chapel Allerton. After that, when she received compensation for her injuries, she attended private Abbey Gisburne for further rehabilitation.

Her injuries meant she had to learn everything from scratch.

She even had to learn to speak again although she never regained her original voice and she says that has been one of the hardest things to cope with.

In 2005 seven years after the crash, she took her first steps with crutches.

Having managed that milestone, George realised the way to progress was to set herself seemingly impossible challenges.

She was going to walk a mile.

“As soon as I put one foot in front of the other, I knew I had to set myself a goal to smash.”

She decided to walk the mile around Yeadon Tarn which, remarkably, she did in less than an hour, raising £5,000 for a charity called the Smart Risk Foundation which aims to reduce preventable injuries through education in schools.

She has since given talks on their behalf in schools across Yorkshire. “I knew I wasn’t going to stop there. I wanted to do so much more to help others and myself in the process.”

Since then she has climbed a mile for Smart Risk. She raised £5,000 after completing a 350-mile bike ride through France and the Somme battlefields in 2012 for Help for Heroes. Then in 2014, she raised a further £2,000 cycling through France and Belgium for STUBS, a charity providing practical support for UK armed services personnel who have been severely injured whilst on duty.

She’s gone on solo holidays, but possibly one of her biggest life changing achievements was learning to pole dance.

“I had a dream that I was in a pub with my friends and we watching a woman swooping a round a pole,” recalls George.

“In my dream I knew I wanted to copy that woman and turned to my friends and said ‘I’m going to do that’. They all looked at me so patronisingly as if to say ‘Aw bless her’, but I was desperate to show them and so I did.”

Even after she woke up the dream and the idea stayed with her. She joined a pole fitness class near Bradford but ended up having one-to-ones with the instructor Hayley.

“It wasn’t just the fitness I enjoyed, but the freedom I experienced when I was out of my chair and not using crutches,” says George who recently took part in a photoshoot which made her realise what a leveller pole fitness is. “Flicking through everybody else’s shots there was absolutely no way on earth you’d think I was any different to them. It really was like my dream had come true.”

She has now turned her spare bedroom into a fitness studio complete with spinning pole.

However, George still has to face many challenges on a day-to-day basis. She will always rely on her wheelchair, but can now walk short distances with crutches and can even drive again.

In February last year she

once again found herself in intensive care with her family being warned to expected the worst after a kidney infection

led to sepsis. But she pulled through. Unbroken is far more than just George’s physical journey.

For the first time she talks openly about being seriously sexually assaulted when she was just 14 on holiday in Morocco.

She says she decided to include it in the book because she wants people to know that whatever happens to you life still goes on. “I want the book to prove that life changing does not mean life ending,” says George.

“You just have to approach things differently, adapt and overcome. Life is what you make it. Impossible is only a word.”