Neil Akers
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Type of
Incident: RTC
Date of
incident: April 19, 2009
Time:
9.40am
Location:
"If it
wasn't for the Air Ambulance, I would not have survived."
These are
the words of biker Neil Akers, 35, a father-of-one from Horsham,
It was a
warm sunny day when Neil and friends Mark Cheesman, 42, and Kris Cooke, 22,
went for a ride to
But they
never made it as a turning Mercedes Benz van collided with Neil's Suzuki GSXR
600 en route. He had been planning to sell the machine on eBay just days
earlier.
Neil
suffered brain damage, a fractured left arm including severe nerve damage, a
collapsed right lung, a ruptured left knee, two broken ribs, a broken finger
and cracked teeth.
He was
airlifted by the Sussex Air Ambulance to the
Keeping a
vigil at his bedside for two-and-a-half weeks were wife Kate, 35, son Samuel 3,
and parents Tony, 61, and Ros, 54.
He
eventually pulled through and was transferred to the
He said: "The doctors said I'm lucky to be alive. It's amazing that I'm still here
really and my wife and son have pulled me through.
"The
worst thing was not being able to give my son a proper cuddle. I couldn't pick
him up and hold him in the air like fathers do."
Just five
months after his near-fatal accident, Neil visited the crew at their Dunsfold
base to thank them for saving his life.
He said "It
was nice to see them and say thank you for looking after me. I asked them how I
was on the day of the accident and they said, 'a bit grim'.
"The crew
have no way of knowing how you are getting on unless you go and see them. I was
given a tour of the helicopter and asked the pilot if I could lie on the bed.
He said jokingly, 'No, you've already been on that, not this time!'
"The Air
Ambulance is a very good charity and it just annoys me that it doesn't get any
funding from the Government. Everyone just expects these services to be there
for them."
Spurred on
by his brother's plight John Akers, from Storrington, West Sussex, and a friend
cycled 100 miles across the
Neil, a
commercial printer, has now returned to work voluntarily twice a week and hoped
to resume full-time duties in May, 2010.
The former
London Marathon runner is currently undergoing physiotherapy on his
badly-injured arm and leg but plans to run the 26-mile marathon a third time to
raise money for the charity that saved him.
