A FEW weeks ago I covered a story about a teenage boy who had been paralysed after falling 20ft from a tree in a park in Derry. He is 14 years old, the same age as my own son.
Dylan Wade was just an ordinary child, like yours and mine, who had gone to the park with his mates one Saturday for a wander around and a muck about. The park is full of mature trees and he decided he wanted to climb one for a laugh. So up he went, higher and higher, looking across the river to the city centre, to his school and to his house.
Then he got frightened about being so high up and made moves to find his way back to the ground. His foot slipped and he fell on his back on the hard ground, one of his ribs puncturing his heart. As he lay there looking at the sun and the clear blue sky, as his friends rang for an ambulance and rang his mum, he didn't know he would never walk again.
I had covered the original story. As a reporter you're always acutely aware that behind the facts and figures of an incident that are given out by the police and ambulance services is a family left devastated, a life changed forever. As a mother I remember thinking that this young boy's life was changed utterly, and imagining something like that happening to my boys, who are so sports mad.
As a reporter I'm not supposed to put myself in the place of the devastated mothers I speak with. As a mother, as a human, I can't help it.
A few weeks back I got the chance to meet the young man himself. I expected to find a boy who had been dealt a cruel blow, who was crushed by the challenges life gave him. I didn't expect to find a teenager who had aspirations to take part in future Paralympics and wanted to raise money to purchase a racing wheelchair.
As Dylan sat there in his wheelchair in the school uniform my son also wears, telling me his story, I just saw my own son. He told me of how he felt nothing but numb and calm as he waited for the ambulance. He told me that his mum was told at the hospital that he might not make it as one of his ribs had pierced his heart and it was now bleeding.
As his mother sat quietly crying beside him, and I tried to hold my own emotions together and keep the interview moving forward, he told me about going to theatre, teetering on the brink of death and waking up, of months in a hospital bed and how he slowly realised he would never walk again.
Dylan was always competitive. Before the accident he was an accomplished runner. A few days before the accident he ran a 5K race in 20 minutes. He has been in a wheelchair now for a year and his mother is amazed at his courage and determination. She holds her breath as he bounces down the steps in their house in his chair and does wheelies in the street.
His teachers at St Joseph's Boys School have to tell him to slow down as he takes the sloping corridors at speed. He trains in the gym five days a week and has dreams of taking part in competitive sports again. Not any competitive sports, but all the way to the Paralympics.
So passionate about sport is he that his PE teacher, Emmett McGinty, has got behind him to try and raise money to buy him a wheelchair that he can race professionally in. This special racing wheelchair costs over £6,000 and tomorrow I will join hundreds of other people in Derry for a 5K run to help raise money for this young man to realise his dream.
I wanted to take part to try and help Dylan – who could have been any of our sons – who has been handed a challenge in life that could have broken most of us.
He is an inspiration. At 14 he has the heart of a lion and wasn't willing to lay under this, despite the cruel cards he was dealt. He deserves that special racing wheelchair. He deserves to race and feel the wind on his face and the blood pumping through his veins as he competes professionally. He deserves to win. He's already a champion.
If you want to help Dylan get his racing wheelchair you can donate here justgiving.com/crowdfunding/emmett-mcginty.
