By Ralph Barnett

FOUR YEARS ago next month, Carnoustie man Kevin Christie severed his spinal cord and was left paralysed from the upper chest down and blind when a seemingly harmless bit of horseplay at a friend’s barbecue went horribly wrong.

On a day that he still has no memory of, Kevin dived into a children’s paddling pool and sustained an injury which has left him requiring almost round-the-clock care but which also galvanised one of the biggest fund-raising efforts ever seen in the Tayside area.

After a period in intensive care at a specialist unit in Glasgow, Kevin was able to move to the Seven Arches annex of the South Grange Care Home in Monifieth where he has surprised family, friends, staff and medical professionals with his determination to regain as much of his health as possible and his good-humoured acceptance that progress can be painfully slow.

Kevin said, “I would say things are on the way up. It’s just a matter of slipping into the daily routine of getting better.”

For Kevin that routine means thrice-weekly physiotherapy sessions—much of it using equipment that was obtained thanks to the generosity of those who raised money for his trust fund—and regular visual stimulation aimed at restoring at least some level of sight.

He said, “We do computer tests on what is left of my eyesight nearly every day but the condition I have been left with—which is called cortical blindness—cannot be treated by surgery and we just have to hope that one day my optic nerves and my brain find some way of reconnecting.

“I can distinguish light from dark to a certain extent and sometimes I have the feeling I can recognise colours and, occasionally, movement.

“It’s not much though and the best way I can explain it is if a sighted person closes his eyes and looks at the sun they would be aware of a shadow passing across their face.

“Cortical blindness is a very rare condition and the crazy thing about it is that there’s nothing wrong with my eyes and, for those who meet me for the first time, they find it hard to believe I’m blind.”

With the sort of indomitable humour that has seen him through the past four years, Kevin said this had led to what, for him, had been moments of humour but for others had been acutely embarrassing.

He said, “One day a few months ago Yvette and I were asked to go an see an optician who was visiting Seven Arches and, although a little puzzled, we went along and joined the queue.

“When we were called through the optician put drops in my eyes and, to our increasing confusion, started setting up eye charts and so on.

“Eventually I just burst out laughing and asked if she knew that I was actually blind and the poor woman was mortified—no one had told her and even to her my eyes looked fine.

“Another time a lad was putting down ant traps around the home and asked me to tell him if I saw any—I told him I would but not to hold his breath!”

Kevin says he feels he is still progressing thanks to the support of people like Yvette, his 15-year-old son Lewis, his brother Graeme and many other friends and relatives—and Yvette’s boxer dog Fergus who has become a popular visitor to Seven Arches.

Also helping is a punishing schedule of physiotherapy aimed at maintaining and strengthening what muscle control Kevin has retained in his shoulders and neck.

He said, “I have a device called a tilt table, which was bought out of the trust fund, and which I get strapped to and moved to an upright position, as if I was standing up on my own.

“It’s really good for my overall health to have my body like that instead of sitting or lying down all the time because the internal organs all settle properly and forces me to use my neck and shoulder muscles for more than just holding my head up.

“I sleep quite lot but I usually have plenty of visitors to keep me company, the staff are wonderful and Yvette sits and reads for me.

“I also listen to the radio a lot—I’m 35 now so it’s Terry Wogan on Radio 2 in the mornings now instead of Radio 1!—and I tune in to the Discovery Channel a lot.

“I got a car through the trust fund and Yvette takes me out for lunch and to get my hair cut or we go to Monikie and Crombie country parks with Fergus.

“A group of us from Seven Arches are also going on holiday to Aviemore again in the summer, staying in a purpose-built disabled accommodation at Badaguish, and I’m looking forward to going back there.”

Graeme said, “Having seen Kevin just about every day since his accident, Yvette and I and the family maybe don’t always realise how far he has come.

“It’s when people who haven’t seen him for a couple of years come to visit and they are astonished at the improvements in his speech and his general health.

“We are all so grateful to those who so generously donated to his trust fund, which has allowed him to get a standard of care that might otherwise have been beyond our reach and still has a very healthy balance for anything else he needs in the future.”

Yvette added, “One thing Kevin has never, ever lost is his wicked sense of humour and that has got him and the rest of through what has been quite an experience.

“I remember him asking me to text his mates—including the lad whose house he was at when the accident happened—to invite them to his birthday barbecue at Seven Arches and insisting I put in that no paddling pools were allowed!”