Recovering From Amputation After Horror Biker Crash | Graphic Content

Warning: graphic content
Nick Bushaway was riding his motorcycle to a friend's house one evening when a road traffic accident changed his life forever. Riding along a straight road, wearing a high visibility vest and protective clothing, a driver pulled out, causing a horrific crash, from which Nick suffered severe injuries to his leg.
Here, Nick reveals his four years of treatment and surgery, which ultimately ended in his leg being amputated, and how taking legal action helped him to move forward in his recovery.
For confidential legal advice with a road traffic accident solicitor, call Slater and Gordon Lawyers today on 0808 175 7783, or contact us online at www.slatergord...
Transcript:
It was about seven o'clock in the evening. It was a clear night, it was no rain or anything like that. I was going off to a friend’s to watch some videos but I didn’t make it.
But I came up to a sort of a left-hand turn where a car was. He pulled out, forced me on to the other side of the road and then he turned right which made me hit the front of his car and over.
I just don’t understand how he hit me. I can't work it out. I was wearing fluorescent jackets as well so I had all the safety gear on. I don't think it really makes a difference. If they don’t look properly, that’s it, you’re coming off. It was just the pain, I wasn’t really thinking, you know, what happened, yes, but it was the pain. The pain was unbelievable and I thought, yeah, I’ve done something bad to me leg.
Well I was sort of like housebound sort of for four years, I was in so much pain. The bone came through me skin so I had a big hole in me leg. I couldn’t really do anything else so I was sort of quite depressed at that time.
I say, it took me four years to get to that amputation point, ‘cause you don’t want to lose limbs. You think that’s the end of your life, sort of thing. It was basically learning to walk again. It was quite hard at first because you’re sort of thinking I’m trusting myself to balancing on a pole so that was a bit sort of… I couldn’t get my head around it. It took me a while to get my head around that. You’ve got to challenge yourself. You’ve got to push yourself otherwise you won’t get anywhere. You know, you could just fall down a dark hole or not, you know, be forgotten about. So you’ve got to push yourself, don’t class yourself disabled. You just get going on with what you’ve got. I’ve looked at life and thinking I need to move forward and concentrate on getting healthier and everything.
I mean, they got me more money than I ever thought I was going to get from the end of the claim and they got me to see all the top consultants and did all the reports, which is a good thing because you know I can get a better leg and that should help for good but you get better legs. They gave me this solicitor, James. He was fantastic, I can’t fault him at all. He would always phone up, just a courteous call to make sure we haven’t been forgotten so I thought that was very good. It sort of made my life now I can move on. You know, I can move into a property and be independent again. You know, it’s helped quite a lot.