Jon Sammut: Triathlete walks for first time after life-altering bike crash during Busselton Ironman
The 27-year-old had to be flown to Royal Perth Hospital on December 1 after accidentally pedalling into a bollard at 50km/h during the annual Busselton Ironman.
He spent three months in hospital, where he underwent 15 leg surgeries and relied on his wheelchair for movement.
But two months after being discharged, Sammut has walked without crutches for the first time.
'It's been quite a long road since coming out of the hospital and coming out of the wheelchair,' the Attadale athlete told PerthNow.
'I've come a pretty long way. I am elated really to be able to walk without crutches, it was just massive.'
But only a few weeks prior, Sammut was convinced he would need the help of crutches indefinitely.
'All of the bones in my leg were still the same level of brokenness since the accident and they're all just sort of floating around in my leg, so it would have felt like I was stepping on eggshells,' he said.
'I've been doing a bone correction program for the last month. The pain increased significantly for the first couple of weeks but then the pain started to come down and it's made me confident enough to put weight through my leg.
'I was thinking I would never come off crutches because everything was just so unstable, or I'm probably going to need a walking stick.
'There was a lot of doubt in my head about where everything was heading, so it was nice to see that I can do it.'
The first surgery after the incident saved the young athlete's life, because his femoral artery was almost cut in the crash. He described waking up from that surgery as extremely emotional given he had been told amputation was a real possibility.
'I snapped my femur as bad as you can,' Sammut said.
'The orthopaedic surgeon said it's one of the worst ones he has seen because one side of the bone was protruding through my hamstring and the other side was protruding through my quad outside my leg.
'I also detached my ACL from my leg, and broke my tibia and fibula to similar extents.
'My good leg, which is also not so good, has a grade 2 ACL tear and I will need to have surgery on that at some stage also.'
Sammut told PerthNow he had put his head down briefly while riding during the Busselton race as he attempted to chase down the leaders after a 3.9km swim leg.
'I came straight off the bike and I felt the full impact of the bollard hit my legs,' he said.
'Then I tried to get up but I couldn't feel my legs, other than them being in a lot of pain.
'But I could see my ankle was facing the other way and was underneath my other leg and I could feel I had a lot of bones misplaced.'
Sammut knows there is still a long way to go but he is keeping positive and hoping he can avoid surgery number 16.
'My whole recovery is just to keep moving forward and look ahead and be positive and not dwell on the past and really try keep getting that little bit better each day,' he said.
'There's still a long way to go to be able to walk fully but five steps today could mean 10 steps next week.'
Sammut isn't thinking about his future as a competitive athlete, instead concentrating on looking forward to being able to socially exercise with friends.
'A lot of my friends do cycling and a lot of my life is tied up with triathlon,' he said.
'I don't think triathlons are really on my bingo card at the moment so really all I want to be able to do is go for a bike ride with my friends or be able to go down to the beach and have a swim.
'I'd like to say that I want to get back into competitive sport but it's just too unknown at this stage and I really just want to appreciate having a healthy body.
'My injuries are so permanent that I'd be competing in the para-triathlon category and the way my mindset is now, I'm not prepared to devote a lot of my time and energy into para sports just yet.
'I just want to regain my life back and be able to do normal everyday stuff and if the time comes and I'm still young, maybe I can get into para sports and compete at the Paralympics, but I feel like I'm still a while away from making that decision.'
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