“When you are lying down for a year, you have a lot of time to think,” recalls Holmes. “So if anyone out there has a spare few quid please go on to the RNOH website and donate whatever you can for this fantastic cause.David Holmes spent 9 months lying in a hospital bed dreaming up his perfect home after an on-set accident put a tragic end to his career as stuntman. “It’s a massive project but once complete it will really change lives. “Everybody at the hospital took great care of me and I met some amazing staff and patients along my road to recovery. Without places like the RNOH things would look much bleaker for those people. He is helping them raise £15 million to buy additional facilities and equipment.ĭavid says: “Every eight hours someone in the UK is told they will never walk again. “I also haven’t let it hold me back in life and I still enjoy track days racing my car, going on holidays with my friends and am now looking forward to starting a new career.”ĭavid has also become an Appeal Ambassador for RNOH, the UK’s largest specialist orthopaedic hospital where he completed his gruelling physio. The trio recently released a series of podcasts to help people who have suffered similar injuries.ĭavid says: “I haven’t let my accident affect my outlook on life and I am still very determined and positive. He has also launched a new production company, Ripple Productions, with two friends who are also tetrapelgic. He uses a ‘push-pull’ hand control system to accelerate and brake. Six years on, David now gets his adrenaline rush driving a specially-modified car around race tracks at speeds of up to 150mph. “Sometimes I do get flashbacks from the accident – I re-live it sometimes when I’m drifting off to sleep – but it’s something I’ve learned to live with and manage.” I also think that if you’re positive about your disability then it can help you live with it. “Having a positive mental attitude means everything. “There was definitely a sense of tragedy for me, but also a sense of sheer determination to beat it and better it. “It was hard for my parents to hear but it was important to me to have that control. I wanted to tell my doctor where I thought I was at – my exact words were that ‘I think I’m completely screwed’. He says: “I took control of the situation quite early on. The cast and crew were like a second family and I remain in touch with a lot of them to this day.”ĭavid knows the injuries he suffered have changed his life for ever.īut he is determined not to let his disability define him. I loved it and Dan was an absolute pleasure to work with. “I found myself in this wonderful studio strapped to the back of a truck, getting towed down the runway, dragging my feet along the floor in front of Chris Columbus, the director.ĭavid appeared in all the Harry Potter movies from The Philosopher’s Stone in 2001 until the accident in 2009. He was spotted as a potential Radcliffe double by stunt co-ordinator Greg Powell who he met just before the series started and was asked to do a broomstick test. While at the RNOH, David was visited by Radcliffe, 24, and Tom Felton, 26, who played Draco Malfoy. I thought, ‘oh my God, I can’t even sit up straight’.” “At the first physio lesson they sit you up, put a foam cushion behind you and you are just struggling to find your balance. “I have gone from being able to stand on my hands for half an hour at a time and then all of a sudden I can’t sit up in bed. The patience you have to learn is unbelievable. He says: “As soon as they sat me up and I took the weight of my head into my shoulders it was just horrendous. He spent six months in the RNOH and as his muscles had almost wasted away was unable to sit up for weeks. It was all the other stuff, like not being able to dance again or have sex.” I’d broken a bone before, so recognising that weird feeling across my whole body from my fingertips right down to my toes, I knew I had really done some damage.”ĭavid was rushed to the local Watford General Hospital but transferred to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore, North West London, where doctors told him he would be paralysed from the chest down, with only limited movement in his arms and hands.ĭavid, now 30, says: “My first thoughts weren’t about not being able to walk again. “I remember slipping in and out of consciousness because of the pain levels. “I looked into his eyes and that’s when I realised what happened was major. I could move my arm to grab his hand but I couldn’t squeeze his fingers. My stunt co-ordinator grabbed my hand and said, ‘Squeeze my fingers’. On set: David Holmes, left, talking to Daniel Radcliffeĭavid, who is now in a wheelchair, says: “I hit the wall and then landed on the crash mat underneath.
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