Grandfather, 69, recalls ‘scariest moment of my life’ when collapsing in the bathroom left him paralysed from neck down

A 69-year-old grandfather from East Yorkshire has rekindled his passion for cycling after a freak accident on his son’s stag weekend left him paralysed from the neck down, with doctors fearing he would never walk again.

Nick Ashdown took up cycling in his early 50s, and along with his wife Cheryl, 61, he would cycle between 250 and 300 miles a week. Nick and Cheryl did “quite a few challenges” in the years before his accident, including a coast-to-coast ride from Morecambe in Lancashire to Bridlington in East Yorkshire, Land’s End to John O’Groats, and the Scottish North Coast 500.

However, an accident on February 19 2023 during his son’s stag weekend almost cost him everything, as he was left paralysed from the neck down.

“I don’t really remember the accident, if I’m honest,” Nick, a retired business analyst told PA Real Life.

Nick was staying at a lodge in Yorkshire with friends to celebrate his 34-year-old son Joe’s wedding – which was due to take place six weeks later – when he got up in the night to use the bathroom. The next thing he knew, he was rousing from unconsciousness on the bathroom floor.

“I couldn’t move anything,” he said.

“I was completely paralysed, which was, without a doubt, the scariest moment of my life.”

After managing to raise the alarm and get someone to call an ambulance, he was rushed to Hull Royal Infirmary.

Thanks to the advocacy of the paramedics and the seriousness of his condition, he was seen right away, and scans confirmed a spinal injury of the C3, C4 and C5 vertebrae – which are responsible for supporting the head and neck, and controlling movement and sensation in the upper body – and he was told there was a “good chance” he would be paralysed permanently from the neck down.

“I remember thinking: ‘Oh, we’ll see. We’ll see’,” he recalled.

“My wife was in the background, crying her eyes out. She was really upset, of course.”

Nick was admitted to Hull Royal Infirmary, where he stayed for around two months, until mid-April 2023.

“I had to lie on my back for, I think it was, three or four weeks. I was not allowed to sit up at all. Then I was allowed to sit up to 30 degrees,” he said.

“I mean, obviously I understood that they were worried about what had happened to the spine. I didn’t break anything, I hadn’t broken any bones at all, but obviously there was some nerve damage, which was the spinal injury. So they were, I suppose, looking back, rightly cautious.”

“The one thing I do remember about not being able to move was that my wife came in one day, towards the end of my stay in Hull, and she walked up to the bed, and I said: ‘Hey, look at this’,” he added.

“I could raise my hand a little bit, and I could move one finger. That’s all I could do. And my wife started crying.”

While Nick was offered an elective operation on his spine, he declined the surgery as he felt the risks did not outweigh the potential reward.

He was told that the operation “might improve rehabilitation”, but that there had been occasions where the surgery had instead hindered rehabilitation.

Due to the location of the injury, surgeons would have had to enter through his throat and move his voice box, which could have caused him to either lose his voice altogether, or experience a stark change to his voice.

Nick therefore decided he did not want to go down the surgical route, and instead started the long road of physiotherapy rehabilitation.

By the middle of April 2023, Nick was well enough to be transferred to Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield, home to the Yorkshire Regional Spinal Injuries Centre, one of 12 specialist spinal injury centres in the UK.

“They were amazing, absolutely amazing,” he said.

“The physiotherapy there was incredible.”

The week after he arrived at Pinderfields, Nick began his physiotherapy rehabilitation. It was “quite slow, to be honest, but it had to be”, and the first step was to get him sitting up on the edge of the bed and rebuild some of his core strength.

Nick had experienced extreme muscle wastage in the months he’d been bedbound, losing nearly 20 kilograms. Before his accident, he’d weighed around 82kg, but when he arrived at Pinderfields his weight had dropped to 64kg.

“One of my first sessions of physio, the nursing staff got me out into a wheelchair, and there was a mirror in the ward I was on. I remember looking in the mirror and thinking: ‘Who’s that?’” Nick said.

“I did not recognise myself at all. My legs looked like sticks of wood rather than muscly legs. I’d lost muscle unbelievably.”

Nick’s physiotherapy began with “one hour per day, Monday to Friday, and then I had two or three occupational therapy sessions a week as well”.

“I remember thinking: ‘Blimey, it’s not very much’, but after the time I’d had where I was inactive, it was enough,” he said.

“I was absolutely shattered after the first few weeks. Absolutely shattered.”

Nick remained at Pinderfields until October 2023, receiving treatment from its spinal injury specialists. By the time he was discharged he could “just” walk – “not brilliantly, but not too bad”.

Around six weeks before he was discharged, the physiotherapist he’d been working with told him that when he first came in and was examined, he and his colleague had thought: “This isn’t looking good… we honestly did not think you would get anywhere near walking”. But here he was, regaining movement day-by-day and slowly getting his life back.

While Nick has been having physiotherapy for two hours per week since returning home, and hits the gym three times a week, one thing still evaded him: getting back on his bike. In March 2025, Nick discovered Jorvik Tricycles – an adult tricycle manufacturer based in York – and riding on three wheels proved more accessible than trying to balance on two.

His electric tricycle enabled him to get back in the saddle, with its motor assistance helping to take some of the strain out of cycling and the three-wheeled bike necessitating less core strength than a traditional two-wheeler. The longest ride he and Cheryl have done so far is 25 miles, but Nick said “the independence is great”, adding that the pedalling is helping his hips to rebuild strength and stability, too.

The future looks bright for Nick. He is nailing his physiotherapy goals, thanks to his perseverance and to cycling, and hopes one day soon he can get back out on his bicycle.

“The goal last year was that I wanted to be able to get down on to the floor so I could play with my grandchildren. So I did that, which was amazing, absolutely amazing.”

As for riding his bicycle, “it’s on the horizon”.

“We haven’t yet attempted it, but definitely, without a doubt, I’m going to try it.”

Find out more about Jorvik Tricycles at jorviktricycles.com.