From Moving One Toe to 6 Million Steps with Fergus Farrell #187
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What exactly caused Fergus Farrell’s spinal injury?
Welcome back to the Lower Down Experience podcast, where each week I bring you insightful and inspiring guests that will open your mind and empower your life. If you like the podcast, take a second to rate it or share it with a friend. It helps more people find it. Hi, it's Laura. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you'll know that I'm a big believer in looking after your health before something goes wrong. That's one of the reasons why I'm delighted to partner with Level Health, today's sponsor. Looking after your health isn't just about what happens when you're unwell. It's about having the right support when you need it. That's exactly what Level Health is about. They're backed by Aviva and already Ireland's fastest growing health insurance provider.
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Health insurance provided by Level Health Limited is underwritten by Aviva Insurance Ireland DAC. Now enjoy the podcast. Mm-hmm. Fergus, you are so welcome to the podcast today. I am delighted to have you on to speak about something catastrophic that happened in your life and What you're doing to make sure that other people that it happens to get the help that they need. Can we dive straight in?
We can, yeah. We can indeed. That's what I'm here for.
So tell us what happened to you.
Twenty sixth of October twenty eighteen I sustained a grey A spinal cord injury. I rushed my T nine, T ten, and the T ten went through my spinal cord and served pinched it by ninety percent. What
does that mean your T ten went through your spinal cord?
So basically uh uh I exploded or ruptured and leaked in through my spinal thylum and ruptured my spinal thylum then by ninety percent. And how did this happen? I was actually just lifting a metal binge. Uh at home and and yeah, in the um in my yard and uh it was no more than sixty or eight AKGs and uh I was in a white shirt, I was about to drive uh bust all the rubber players up to Northern Ireland because I had the white shirt on I had to lift this bench out for 'em my And Sean, uh mechanically the other side and we started walking across the a earth with it and maybe carried it about fifteen or twenty metres and next thing I got this pain up through the back and I dropped it. Like that, I took in ten, fifteen, twenty deep breaths and I lifted it again and I took a step and bang.
Explosion. A massive explosion in the middle of my back and fell down roaring and pain and yeah, it said the rest is history, you know.
So it was actually lifting something that did it for you. It wasn't an injury that you sustained, like someone an impact injury. No.
No, so I'm i I'm a little bit unusual because uh there's two types of spinal cord injuries. There's non traumatic and traumatic. Right. So traumatic is like falling from heights, car crashes, things like that. Non traumatic would be like uh growths or tumors and or an infection on the spine or a spinal concussion. And m mine sits in Neil place, you know.
It's kind of in the middle. Yeah.
Yeah. So it's it was very, very unusual to have from Lifton to have a such a high injury.
Yeah.
My God. Yeah. Was there had you had back damage before because of your rugby career or anything like that?
Nothing. Again, that was one of the big questions I asked a few I suppose, a few months after that accident happened and uh just said there was no sign of calcification.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What exactly caused Fergus Farrell’s spinal injury?
0:03–5:14
2
How did Fergus use visualisation to trigger the first movement after 21 days?
5:14–9:37
3
What hidden disabilities does Fergus still experience despite walking again?
9:37–13:51
4
How did the injury affect Fergus’s family and his three businesses?
13:51–17:23
5
What lessons did Fergus learn about stress, anxiety and resilience during rehab?
17:23–21:24
6
How did the idea of walking 4,500 km across America develop and what are the logistics?
21:24–25:12
7
What message does Fergus want to share about perseverance and the meaning of life?
25:12–29:24
8
What advice does Fergus give to young people and how can listeners support his walk?
29:24–35:55
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The Laura Dowling Experience
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