(Reuters) – Trinidad and Tobago’s Andrew Lewis says participating at this month’s Olympics was the farthest thing from his mind after a freak accident left him fighting for his life in Rio de Janeiro last December.
The 26-year-old laser sailor was crushed by the top section of a wall after it fell on him as he was trying to retrieve his keys. He was left with two broken ribs, a broken tibia and fibula in his left leg, a punctured lung and nine fractured bones in his face.
“At that point you don’t really think about the Olympics any more, you think about survival you know,” Lewis said. “Life is a very precious thing for me and I don’t want it to be taken away, so the basic things like walking again, eating again, breathing again on my own were the priority. “Being in the hospital was a blur for me. My dad arrived on the second day and one of the first things I told him was, ‘Don’t worry Dad, we’ll be on the start line’. I don’t give up very easily. After a few weeks of the worst pain I’ve ever felt, I realised I could get past the pain.”
After a week in hospital his lung was functioning well enough for him to have surgery on his facial injuries, and he also required an operation to insert a metal pin extending from his left knee to his ankle.
“I told my team of doctors and physiotherapists I would walk one month from the accident, and I would run in two months,” he said. “And once I could walk and run, I could sail. Anyone who told me ‘no’, I pretty much removed them from the team.
“The main doctor looking after me said, ‘If it hurts you stop, if it doesn’t hurt you continue’, and I use this concept to this day.”
