Mum thrown through coffee table by Colin Firth as Nicole Kidman’s stunt double thanks knee donor for changing her life

A mother who was once thrown through a coffee table by Colin Firth as Nicole Kidman’s stunt double, but suffered a career-ending injury while performing a somersault, wants to thank the surgeons and an anonymous knee meniscal donor who helped transform her life.

Cat Fitchett, 38, a former sports model turned stunt performer from Hurley, Berkshire, said she has lived a “crazy” life, jumping off 12m (39ft) towers, somersaulting, and even doing fight scenes with film stars.

She worked as Nicole Kidman’s stunt double for the 2014 thriller Before I Go to Sleep, where she was thrown “through a coffee table” by Colin Firth, and she loved the experience.

However, it was during Cat’s stint as a stunt performer that she suffered a devastating injury while performing a full twisting back somersault on a trampoline.

It left her barely able to walk and contemplating suicide, and she then faced years of rehabilitation and surgeries.

“When I was in the middle of rehab, I was just in this hole, where I couldn’t see my way out of it. I felt like I’d lost half of my personality,” she told PA Real Life.

“If we were on holiday, I’d be the one that would back somersault off the boat, but I felt I couldn’t be that person anymore, and I thought, ‘am I even fun without that side of me?'”

However, after marrying her husband Simon, a 48-year-old mental performance coach, in April 2017, she underwent a knee meniscal transplant from an anonymous donor in May 2017.

Now, almost seven years on from the life-changing procedure, Cat has started a new career helping others rehabilitate from injury as a pilates therapist and clinical sports masseuse.

She is once again able to pursue her passions of skiing, horse riding, and running, and even became a mother to her son Albie, now five, in 2018, who is following in her footsteps.

“In the world of sports modelling and stunts, there generally is an endpoint to all of that,” Cat explained.

“How everything happened was one of the biggest mental challenges to get over, but now, I know that I’m changing people’s lives, helping them with their rehabilitation.

“Whatever your injury, you can get back to doing amazingly fun things… whatever you want to do, you’ll find a way of doing it.”

Cat was extremely sporty growing up, winning the British Novice Solo Ice Dancing Championships aged nine and the high jump National Championships aged 14.

After working as a dancer and sports model, alongside training and teaching pilates, Cat was welcomed into the world of stunt performing, jumping off 12m high towers and over a BMW.

She has even done wing walking – where she is strapped onto a plane as tricks are performed – and stunts where she has fallen off galloping horses.

She then worked as Nicole Kidman’s stunt double for the film Before I Go to Sleep, doing fight scenes with Colin Firth – which she said was “so cool”.

“Nothing was super challenging, but having Colin Firth throw you through a coffee table on a Monday morning – it was quite fun,” she said.

Cat was then encouraged to apply for the British Stunt Register, but it was during her training for this in October 2014 that she sustained a catastrophic knee injury.

“I was training on the trampoline, doing a full twisting back somersault – one of the exam moves that we had to do – and nothing went wrong, it was all normal,” she explained.

“I came in to land and the next thing I know – disaster.

“In that moment, I just remember holding my knee together and I just remember screaming: ‘Everything’s over, everything’s over’.”

Cat had caught her right leg awkwardly on the landing mat, causing complete ruptures in both her cruciate ligaments, her medial collateral ligament, and both menisci – cartilage in the knee.

She described the pain as “outrageous”, was blue-lighted to hospital, and later underwent her first multi-ligament reconstruction surgery, which was six hours long.

Her surgeon at Wexham Park Hospital, Henry Bourke, said the procedure had been successful but explained that she will most likely never be able to walk without a limp or run again.

“I wasn’t married, I didn’t have children at that point, and all I thought was, ‘how am I going to run alongside my children?'” she said.

“It wasn’t work that I was thinking about, I just thought, ‘how am I going to do the basic things?'”

Cat was then faced with months of rehabilitation, which she described as “horrendous”.

She said she had gone from high diving off a 10-metre board to struggling to put her own sock on – but she knew she had to fight back.

“I don’t like anyone to tell me, ‘No, it’s not possible’, that’s like a red rag to a bull with me,” she said.

She then underwent a second surgery and carried on with her rehabilitation until she was transferred to receive care under Tim Spalding at University Hospital Warwickshire in 2016.

The discussion of a knee meniscal transplant took place, as Cat’s lateral meniscus – a structure in the knee joint – had been totally removed, and she was placed on the waiting list.

Given Cat was still in excruciating pain two years on, likening it to “someone getting a needle and shoving it up your thigh”, she hoped a match would become available soon.

After a match was found and the life-changing moment arrived in May 2017, Cat had to keep her leg “locked straight for six weeks”.

She was told it could take up to a year to recover – but within four months, Cat was walking again.

She had previously worked as a volunteer for the NHS, helping on the orthopaedic ward at Heatherwood Hospital, but she wanted to do more to “give back” post-transplant.

After obtaining the relevant qualifications, Cat now helps clients with injuries with prehabilitation and rehabilitation, describing it as “so rewarding”.

While her life has never been the same since her injury and it is “a constant work in progress”, she is thankful that she has been able to rebuild her life.

“There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish that I was still in that world… but equally, I don’t know how that world would work being married and having a child,” Cat said.

“I try to always see the positive, and there are lots of positive things that have come out of it all.”

She added: “With organ donations, the parts you think are life-changing are the heart or the lungs, but actually, this little bit of the knee is completely life-changing to someone.”

Cat is working with The University of Warwick to raise awareness of the work of specialist clinicians and researchers helping to transform the lives of people who suffer similar, catastrophic knee injuries.

As part of its research, Warwick Medical School is recruiting people take part in two trials – METEOR2 and REPPORT – to compare traditional physiotherapy rehabilitation treatment with transplanted knee surgeries.

To find out more about the trials, visit: warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/med/research/ctu/trials/meteor2 or warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/med/research/ctu/trials/repport

To find out more about Cat’s business, visit: balancepro.co.uk