‘When you’re doing all those things, people stop seeing your injury’

The inspirational Ryan Medley is taking control of his life again after suffering a fractured vertebrae in a country footy match two years ago, writes NICK WALSHAW.

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On the day he lost use of both legs, Ryan Medley could only think about his hands. No idea why, he says.

Yet while laying sprawled, motionless on that dusty bush oval in Wellington — face up, and with his C5 vertebrae fractured in the most bastard of ways — this Dubbo backrower clearly remembers telling a blur of faces above him “f … I hope I get to use my hands again”.

“Which sounds weird now,” Medley concedes.

“But it’s like the gravity of what was coming, I knew”.

And maybe it’s because everything available to him seconds earlier, as he trucked that Steeden into the Wellington Cowboys defence, all arms, legs, hands, feet — it now refused to move.

Lifeless, despite his trying.

Or perhaps it was the body language of older brother Shane; who having initially watched that most innocuous of tackles from the sidelines, suddenly appeared crouched over his best mate, all blood drained from his face.

“Which is when,” Medley says now, looking down at those hands curled almost shut, “I commented about hopefully using these again.”

And then, the 30-year-old begins slowly opening his right hand.

“Can hold a schooner in it,” he says, proudly nodding to the laboured movement that, measured in millimetres, has taken 18 months to perfect. “It’s a bit shaky. But that’s always been me after a few beers.”

And then, Medley laughs.

Same deal when quizzed on what he can now do around the house.

“Well,” he shrugs, “I couldn’t do much before.”

Cook? “My sole dish is devilled sausages,” the former Dubbo concreter grins. “Which tastes no better now, either.”

Ryan Medley with wife Casey in Dubbo.

And as for wife Casey, that unshakeable Narromine girl who you married in 2015 and is now, from the moment you wake, a constant by your side?

“Oh, stuffed without her,” Medley insists. “I’m just lucky she likes me.”

Seated inside a large, Dubbo rehabilitation centre, Medley is talking through what we initially wanted to call the most inspiring rugby league story of 2019.

Only problem, he hates the word inspiring. Doesn’t think himself inspirational, either.

Which is a little tough considering this schmick, new gym in which we now sit — Active, On The Move — isn’t only the brainchild of this paralysed bush leaguie, but owned and managed by himself, wife Casey and trainer Nic Grose.

Conceived only months ago, as he worked out on donated equipment in his parents’ garage, this centre for people with chronic injury already boasts 40 clients, two exercise physiologists and a reputation spreading throughout the state.

Ryan Medley with wife Casey in their Dubbo gym.

Yet when initially asked for an interview to discuss this, Medley admits to having spent “all night sweating on the decision” before reluctantly agreeing.

“Because,” he says, “I’d hate to be labelled a hero.”

But, geez, how do we not?

Understanding next Tuesday marks two years to the day since Medley, playing his first game of rugby league in six years, ran the ball, was tackled to the ground and simply never stood again.

Initially, he was airlifted to Royal North Shore hospital for spinal surgery.

After that, countless weeks, then months, in rehabilitation wards where, first, he was taught to breathe again.

Then, that unforgettable session where two, maybe three hospital staffers positioned him to sit upright at the edge of his bed.

“And when they let me go, thud,” Medley says. “I just flopped straight forward. Doubled over on that bed thinking, ‘oh, shit’.”

Ryan Medley and his family at Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney in 2017.

Yet since then, this fella who refuses to be called inspiring has rehabbed, moved home, overhauled his house, learnt to sit upright, hold a toothbrush, a coffee cup, a schooner, opened his hand, opened a gym, politely declined any more donations — “I can get out, make a living” — and now encourages others, while providing a service like few others in Australia, particularly in the bush.

“But all this,” Medley says, nodding around a room full of exercise machines and coloured resistance bands, “it’s good for me, too.

“Whenever people say to me, ‘oh, you’re doing such a good thing’, I’m quick to explain that I’ve got my own agendas.

“This business, it’s part of my therapy. And keeping busy, I love it.

“Whenever I’m doing the books, answering phones, speaking with clients … when you’re doing all those things, people stop seeing your injury.

“You’re just another guy at work.”

Which, ironically, is what Medley was supposed to be that Sunday afternoon of June 4, 2017.

“Wasn’t even going to play,” says the fella who woke that day a first-grade cricketer, occasional footballer and the owner of a small concreting business.

Ryan Medley waiting to get on to the field.

“That morning, I’d had breakfast with a mate and loaded my truck.

“I was going up to Boggabri for a week of work. And because I didn’t want to be driving late at night, not with a loaded truck and roos on the roads, I was umming and aahing about the game.

“But then I said, ‘ah, bugger it I’ll play’.”

Which has since taken some getting over.

“In two years, I’ve replayed so many ‘what if’ scenarios,” he concedes.

“What if I’d gone to work? What if I ran the ball differently?

“But the only advice I’d give to people in my situation: don’t do that. It does nothing for your head.”

Ryan Medley in action for Dubbo.

Same deal so many things involved with a spinal cord injury.

“Throughout this journey,” Medley continues, “you get exposed to being so vulnerable.

“Early on, I had a lot of bowel and bladder problems.

“You’re supposed to be this fit, strong 28-year-old bloke and … yeah, it just takes you to a real vulnerable place.

“Has you thinking, ‘shit, I wish my wife didn’t have to see that’. But eventually you get through it. You have to.”

And physically?

“First few months, you’re going to be the back page story,” he says.

“That guy who bounces up and out of bed, right back to how he always used to be.

“Then when that doesn’t happen, you get angry. Frustrated.

“First couple of months, I didn’t read a newspaper, touch a phone, watch a movie.

“And I know I’ve got every right to be miserable. But it’s not going to make things better. Or easier. So what’s the point?”

Ryan Medley and wife Casey in their Dubbo gym.

Instead, Medley works out three times a day.

He interacts with clients, talks of getting a driver’s licence and helps old concreting mates by pricing their jobs.

Elsewhere, he sees the gym expanding. And wants children, plural.

“People used to say I was too mad for kids,” he grins. “Wasn’t ready.

“And, yeah, they were right. But now, touch wood, it’s something Casey and I will be able to do.

“Because what’s happened with me, I now understand it’s just one part of my life.

“Which isn’t to say I’ll get over it. I won’t. And I know that.

“But I also know I’ve come to terms with it. Know I’ve got bigger things coming, too.

“Not sure exactly what, but that’s the exciting thing.

“Who knows how far you can go?”

LEAGUE NOT TO BLAME FOR MY INJURY

Ryan Medley has never watched a replay of the tackle that changed his life. But rugby league?

“Watch more NRL now than ever before,” he says.

“I don’t cringe watching games and I’m certainly not upset with the game itself, either.

“After the injury, a lot of people were making a big deal out of the fact it was my first game in six years. But sport’s always been part of my life.

A year before the spinal injury in June 2017, Medley was playing rugby union.

“So I definitely wasn’t fresh off the bus. And the rugby league community, from people here in Dubbo right up to the NRL, has been incredible.”

So good in fact, Medley recently had to ask for donations to stop.

“From the moment I hit the ground two years ago,” he says, “the support I’ve received has been incredible.

Ryan Medley is helped from the field after his injury.

“People have been so generous … to the point I actually had to pull them out.

“Because while I really appreciate what everyone has done, I can function now, so I can get out and make a living.”

The 30-year-old revealed former Newcastle forward Alex McKinnon, who was himself paralysed during a game in 2014, had also wished him well during his earliest stages of recovery.

“That was when I was still in the hospital,” he said.

“Actually, there’s been a lot of people with similar injuries who have phoned to offer support.

“I’m just so lucky, here in Dubbo, too, to be surrounded by so many great people.”