Dad's letter of hope after crash puts him in coma

Paul Saunders volunteers for the Day One Trauma Support charity

A father-of-two who spent five weeks in a coma after a cycling accident has shared a letter he has written to himself.

Paul Saunders, 48, from Swanland, East Yorkshire, broke his ribs, shoulder and collar bone, punctured his lungs, and suffered a tear in a blood vessel near his heart after he crashed into the back of a van in 2022.

He has no recollection of the incident and had to learn to walk again.

Mr Saunders' letter forms part of the Dear Me campaign, led by Day One Trauma Support, a charity which provides support to people recovering from major trauma.

Lucy Nickson, its chief executive, said: “Dear me is an honest, powerful and enlightening glimpse into what it’s like coping with life-changing injury.

"Paul’s letter is unique, but there are themes that represent the thousands of people who experience a catastrophic injury each year."

Mr Saunders spent five weeks in a coma at Hull Royal Infirmary

Mr Saunders has allowed the BBC to share his letter in full:

Dear Paul,

What the hell have you got yourself into?

You have just awoken in an ICU bed with a machine connected to your throat that is breathing for you. You have been told you have been in a serious accident and you have been in hospital unconscious for eight weeks. What a shock!

You can’t move due to all your rib fractures, you can’t eat or drink, and you can’t speak to ask questions. You can’t ask if you’re going to survive, or how long you’re likely to be in hospital, or if you’ll ever recover. Your internal organs have been shattered. Your aorta was torn and your kidneys are not functioning, so you will need dialysis to survive.

It’s almost too much to take in. It is too much to take in!

Well, I’m here to tell you to just hang on.

I know that is easier said than done, and that you will feel like you want to give up the fight to survive: the pain, despite the drugs; the fear that you will never recover from these injuries; the burden you feel you will be on your family; the long, long nights which seem to drift on forever, with only the bleeps from the tracheostomy machine to reassure you that you are still breathing.

Because the nights will end. There will be better days ahead, although you can’t imagine them now. I know you can be strong and push through this to get off the trachy, out of ICU, onto the major trauma ward, into rehab and eventually home.

It’s going to be the toughest thing you will ever do, but you will be stronger for it in the end. You will realise how precious and fragile this life is. You will appreciate every day with your family and see all the wonders of the world that you have been taking for granted all this time. You will realise when you look back that the little things were really the big things! You’ll be strong again, in fact even stronger.

Your family and friends will be there to help you every step of the way. You will never believe this now, but with courage and a will to survive, you will breathe again, your kidneys will function again, you will drink again, eat again, sit up again, stand again, walk again, be pain free again and see the sun again.

Remember to take your recovery slowly. Don’t push to speed up recovery or you will only go backwards for a while.

Two years from now you will be asked to write a letter to yourself, and guess what? This is the letter you have written! But don’t worry, you won’t turn out like Biff in Back to the Future!

So, one last thought for you my friend: “Dum spiro spero”.

Paul.

Ms Nickson said the physical journey to recovery was often "long, complex and daunting".

She added: "The emotional and psychological support that so many need is often lacking and disjointed due to underfunding."

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