Andrew
"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
Poll: 🤖 What skills do you think give a CV the ultimate edge in a robot-filled workplace?
The Reserve Bank has shared some pretty blunt advice: there’s no such thing as a “safe” job anymore 🛟😑
Robots are stepping into repetitive roles in factories, plants and warehouses. AI is taking care of the admin tasks that once filled many mid-level office jobs.
We want to know: As the world evolves, what skills do you think give a CV the ultimate edge in a robot-filled workplace?
Want to read more? The Press has you covered!
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52.5% Human-centred experience and communication
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14.7% Critical thinking
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30.1% Resilience and adaptability
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2.7% Other - I will share below!
Share your favourite main crop potato recipe and win a copy of our mag!
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Some Choice News!
DOC is rolling out a new tool to help figure out what to tackle first when it comes to protecting our threatened species and the things putting them at risk.
Why does this matter? As Nikki Macdonald from The Post points out, we’re a country with around 4,400 threatened species. With limited time and funding, conservation has always meant making tough calls about what gets attention first.
For the first time, DOC has put real numbers around what it would take to do everything needed to properly safeguard our unique natural environment. The new BioInvest tool shows the scale of the challenge: 310,177 actions across 28,007 sites.
Now that we can see the full picture, it brings the big question into focus: how much do we, as Kiwis, truly value protecting nature — and what are we prepared to invest to make it happen?
We hope this brings a smile!
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