Tough road back from 15 metre-fall

JOHN SELKIRK/The Dominion Post

BROKEN BUT NOT BEATEN: Terry Morris in Middlemore Hospital yesterday. He is paralysed below his waist but says he is lucky to have a second chance.

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When Terry Morris fell 15 metres off an indoor rock-climbing wall, it felt as if he'd slammed six inches into the concrete floor.

"I was thinking, 'The brake system's going to kick in, the brake system's going to kick in' – and it never did. My body took it pretty hard."

His X-rays and MRI scan show just how hard – the fall in Rotorua last October broke his back in three places, broke several ribs, his sternum, both ankles and heels and collapsed one of his lungs.

For the past three months, Mr Morris, 48, has been flat on his back in Middlemore Hospital.

He is paralysed below his waist and may never be able to stand again. But he believes without the care and swift thinking of doctors and the rescue helicopter service, he could be a tetraplegic – or dead.

"I have few memories of that day, however what I clearly remember is the professionalism and compassion demonstrated by the pilot and paramedic."

His neck was carefully looked after during a bumpy flight through bad weather, preventing further damage to his spine. "Even now I still have a lot of pain and just numbness in my fingers.

"The spinal damage was done in [the vertebrae] that affect all your hand and arm movement.

"A little bit more damage and ... " Mr Morris, an industrial cleaning company director, said he had been "reasonably fit" and went rock-climbing several times a year before the accident.

He fell from near the top of an 18 metre climb at The Wall, a rock-climbing complex in Rotorua.

His accident is still being investigated by the Labour Department, but he understands the rope had not been passed through the locking system properly – something his climbing buddy "took pretty hard".

The news from doctors at Auckland Spinal Unit that he was a paraplegic was "mind-blowing", but Mr Morris now jokes it was his version of a mid-life crisis, and he was lucky to survive as he was not wearing a helmet.

"It forces you to look at your life – what's important, what's not important. This is almost like a second start."

He faces another three months in the spinal unit, where physiotherapists are trying to stimulate the muscles below his waist and teach him how to live life as a paraplegic.

When he is finally allowed home, he and his wife, Shirley Hooper, plan to return to Rotorua to thank the helicopter and hospital staff he credits with his life.

"It just makes such a huge difference to people like me.

"The thing that hits me the most is that I'm still here."

- © Fairfax NZ News