Andrew

The Team from Humans of Christchurch Ōtautahi

"I was hit by a bus 22 years ago."

"I need to have a rest, that's very important to me, just for half an hour, just shut my eyes and no, no, no distractions, and then I can keep going on the rest of the day.

I had three days in Wellington. It was at six o'clock in the evening, going with a run with friends. I was on the island; in the middle, parliaments’ over there and I think the bus went through an orange light. It was an old bus, so the mirror was way out, and it clipped me I think; I mean, I don't know, but this, is what I’ve been told. I was in a coma for seven weeks. About a week after the accident, I started twisting my finger so that must’ve meant that I was not completely dead!

The hardest thing was I couldn't talk. I couldn't say a word. I could understand, but how do you communicate? So yeah, so that was just very frustrating. I couldn't do the alphabet. I could do A, B, C, D, what's after D? It took me about three years to speak the alphabet.

I did two degrees, one with honours; computer science and accounting. I had a big company, and I designed software for other companies. I had 200 people working for me. Now I’m completely dyslexic.

I’ve been banned from one supermarket. The manager came, you're not allowed to be here. Why not? Because you're so rude to the checkout two days ago. I said you've treated me badly and so and so... and the police came.

Before my accident, I could speak very fluently. So it's not going right, I get louder and I get frustrated. I don't get frustrated at them, I get frustrated at myself. But they don’t understand.

What can you do? You have to live life so it can be very frustrating. What choice do you have?

I did the Coast to Coast 15 years ago, with a friend. The half marathon in Christchurch. I've done that about six times, seven times. The best thing you can do for your brain is endorphin. So if you want to, if you want to keep things improving, they need some endorphins."

- Andrew