The true story of one man’s survival after a life-changing accident and finding strength and belief in his darkest moments…
In a split second, Mark Berridge’s life came crashing down. His bicycle understeered through a corner, the impact wrenching him over the handlebars and catapulting him headfirst into a stormwater drain. A large piece of dislodged vertebra compressed his spinal cord, causing devastating nerve damage. Mark spent more than seven weeks in hospital and nine months in intensive rehabilitation. His sustained effort to regain mobility became an integral part of his new identity.
In his powerful new book, A Fraction Stronger, Mark shares his inspiring true story of how an average person achieved an exceptional outcome after a life-changing accident. He shares practical lessons and insights that we can all apply to our own challenges, to help guide us through life’s impossible moments. These small actions, combined with determination to seek out possibility in the darkness, can light your way forward.
This is not a story about the occurrence of a miracle. It’s about an everyday person who visualised an exceptional outcome. It’s about reframing your demons into sources of motivation and fighting for your dream when it starts to fade. We all have obstacles thrown at us, but it’s how you choose to handle them that counts. Mark found the power within himself to become stronger every day and no matter what your circumstances, you can too.
The day my life changed forever started out much like a typical Sunday. I reached for my iPad in the pre-5a.m. darkness to shut off the soft intro chords of Ed Sheeran’s “The A Team” before it disturbed my wife, Lucy. For a moment, I considered staying in bed. The previous days had been long and tiring, as I had worked with colleagues to put the finishing touches on the workshop we were to deliver in Salt Lake City the coming week. But I knew early morning exercise would help me sleep during that evening’s long-haul flight to the U.S., so I willed myself out of bed and into the quiet morning, leaving Lucy and our three teenage kids to their peaceful slumber.
Within minutes I was pedalling my bike through the silent Coorparoo [in Brisbane, Queensland] streets towards my cycling crew’s rendezvous point, feeling good about my decision to push through the fatigue. I knew I’d lose cycling fitness while I was in the U.S., and getting this one last ride in could fractionally reduce that impact. I always focused on grasping marginal gains, but it was much more than just exercise – I valued the camaraderie of the group. We called ourselves the COGs – Coorparoo Older Guys – because mostly we were acquainted through the local schools our children attended in or around that Brisbane suburb. We were united in our shared love of cycling, but it went deeper than that, with many important friendships establishing as we rode.
I’d joined the group a couple of years before as I strived to improve my health and fitness. The cycling captain, Stewart (Stewy), had been one of the first people I’d met when I moved to Brisbane 20 years earlier. Stewy and I had formed an important bond, staying in close contact as our children grew up together, our families intertwining as we became godparents to each other’s children.
It took a tough, sustained effort to bring myself up towards the fitness standard set by the COGs. I could readily have given up on many of the early rides, feeling defeated and embarrassed as I regularly fell away from the pack. But I persevered, and, in the moments of choosing to do so, I had no idea the COGs and our rides would become such a treasured part of my life. We did 40km “river loops” two or three times each week, plus the Sunday ritual of a longer ride – typically around 70km, but sometimes up to 110km.
As we rode that Sunday morning, I chatted proudly as I relived the prior day’s cricket action at Villanova College – my sons’ school. My eldest son, Luke, had taken an important catch and saved many runs in the field as his side prevailed in a seesawing game against their strongest rival. This offset my youngest son’s disappointment as his team was thumped by the same school. Charlie, a natural leader, never stopped trying to lift his team and took a key wicket. Between periods of chatting, I cherished the harmony of cycling with the crew. I had discovered my love of cycling many years before, riding to and from my first full-time job. I started riding to avoid the frustration of erratic bus timetables and soon found that cycling provided me the headspace for thought and reflection, plus the satisfying release of extending myself with intense periods of physical effort. I enjoyed challenging myself to pedal as hard as I could, hurtling my second-hand mountain bike along the Swan River foreshore in Perth, competing with those on much faster bikes.
As we rode that morning, I reflected on the past few weeks of intense preparation for the Salt Lake City workshop. I was proud of our work, confident our initiatives would secure the longer-term future for our client and its 200-plus workers. I allowed myself to daydream about the sneaky skiing weekend I planned to squeeze into the trip, remembering the near-perfect conditions we’d enjoyed on Salt Lake City’s slopes during our previous visit. They were two of the best ski days ever. As I coasted down Fig Tree Pocket Road alongside my crew, I remember thinking, “How beautiful is the weather this morning? How perfect to be able to cycle like this.” Then, in a fraction of a moment, my whole world changed.
I could see the corner ahead and watched the six other riders as they slowed around it, using that information to plan my turn. Pip, Dave and I were a bit behind the pack, riding single file, giving us the chance to corner a fraction quicker. Braking to a safe speed, I felt balanced, enjoying that magical feeling of cornering my bike. Then suddenly my front wheel wasn’t gripping the road. Rather than pedalling through and out of the corner as planned, I was skating straight ahead, momentarily out of control. In a split second I processed my options and decided to crash into the grassy parkland ahead, even though I could see both a 90-degree kerb and pine barriers, which meant I’d be flung over the handlebars for sure.
I remember the terrible sensation of my shoes being wrenched from their cleats and my hands being ripped from their grip on my brake levers as my body weight surged forward, catapulted from my bike. I felt my head striking the ground – hard – followed by my body slamming down on its side. Then the intense, searing pain hit me. Gasping, I realised I couldn’t breathe properly: my pain, shock and injuries combined to cause short, shallow pants. I could feel the sensation of dirt under my left side, but I couldn’t move or look around. Suddenly I felt someone near me – Dave. I could hear Mike talking in the distance, on the phone getting emergency assistance.
“The ambulance is on its way, Berro”, he said.
MY IMPACTFUL MOMENTS
In the early hours of 10 March 2019, the trajectory of my life changed forever. In a fraction of a moment, I went from cruising downhill enjoying the freshness of the morning air and beautiful sunshine, to hitting a sunken, slippery piece of bitumen repair work, causing my bicycle to understeer through its cornering line. Bereft of viable options, I chose what I felt was the best of my bad alternatives: braking and crashing straight ahead into a park. It is incredible how quickly you seem to be able to process information, and the detail you recall of those thoughts that took just fractions of seconds.
My bike bounced up the kerb and slammed into the park’s pine bollard boundary. I flew high from my bike and came down in a stormwater drain, about 1.5 metres below the road level. My left hand probably hit the bluestone rock wall edge of the drain first. My trajectory drove my head into that same rock and my left shoulder hard into the ground. The impact crushed the left side of my helmet.
Around four hours after my accident, I learned the shocking extent of the damage. The force that went through my helmet as I struck the ground had compressed two of my vertebrae, crushing one to just 40 per cent of its original height. A large fragment of that vertebra had burst into my spinal cord, causing nerve damage and compressing the space available for the spinal cord to function. I had also fractured my left shoulder and wrist, and three ribs.
At the exact hour I was due to depart Brisbane for Salt Lake City, I was in the operating theatre with a team of experts inserting two 23cm rods into my back to stabilise my spine. I didn’t know it yet, but that work trip was the first of many aspects of my life that would be displaced by my misadventure – my immediate career, my ability to walk, my role in the family.
Fortunately, many crucial aspects of my life were spared by the quality of my recently acquired helmet. I’d been eyeing off new bikes when I stumbled on that $300 helmet, marked down to $150 in the New Year sales. Fate was looking after me that day. The helmet protected my ability to comprehend, to think and to recall valuable memories. These have provided – and will continue to provide – the comfort of the past, perspectives on the present and inspiration for the future. And it is this that affords me this privilege of describing my story and recovery – to relate to you the experiences and learnings that supported my journey and how these can be powerful for you, too, no matter your circumstances in life.
A FRACTION STRONGER
Now, more than two years after the accident, I am still a work in progress – as I will be for my remaining life. I am slower. I need to be careful with my balance. Every action takes a lot more energy and getting off the floor is difficult. But I have been able to recapture much of my mobility, and I am grateful for that. The disruption to my sense of identity was the most unsettling aspect. In a split second the immediate pathway of my life became vastly different – as if my crushed vertebrae represented the next two stepping-stones of my life, and these had just shattered before me.
Instead of co-leading a workshop in the U.S., I would be doing my best to picture my meaningful future from a bed in acute care. I had many disrupted thoughts: Who am I now? What parts of my former self can I get back? How do I do that? What are my true colours? What values will I stand for? I was doing everything I could to stay positive, to look forward. But it was a wrestle. I was feeling sorry for myself. I was expending energy reflecting on the accident and what went wrong. I was lonely and fearful of setbacks. I was overwhelmed with guilt that I was going to be a burden to my family. I was weighed down with doubt.
Energy is precious. Dwelling on things beyond your control will exhaust you. I realised that I needed to limit the thoughts that distracted me from my recovery. I had to concentrate my attention on the actions that would move me towards my vision of recovery from the current moment. I had to become a fraction stronger, then a fraction stronger again – repeatedly. I had to work hard to release myself from the burden of doubt. I gave myself permission to tolerate uncertainty – because only by embracing uncertainty can we liberate possibility. Only by letting go of the distractions can we obtain the clarity and focus we need to make sure our effort supports our goals.
You won’t get it right every moment, every day. I certainly didn’t. But you can make it a habit you revert to, to keep you on that pathway to your vision. By navigating our tough moments, we discover who we are. We build connections that support us for life. We rebuild that sense of identity that is slipping away. I have been there. I came back stronger. Different, but stronger. And no matter what you’re facing right now – whether it’s a physical or emotional challenge – you can, too.
A FRACTION STRONGER by Mark Berridge (Major Street Publishing $32.99rrp) is available at all good book stores and www.markberridge.com.au
By MARK BERRIDGE
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