Songwriting therapy hits the right note for injured shearer

A SHY shearer who was left with quadriplegia after a sheep kicked him in the head has ­discovered a talent for songwriting after his accident.

John watches old shearing mates at work in the shearing shed at "Killeen" near Crichtons Creek on Friday 31st October, 2014. Picture: Mark Dadswell

A SHY shearer who was left with quadriplegia after a sheep kicked him in the head has ­discovered a talent for songwriting after his accident.

John Betts had never been one to express his feelings or put pen to paper, but all that changed when he took part in a new therapy at the Royal Talbot Rehabilitation Centre.

The songwriting project aims to help people with ­acquired brain and spinal cord injuries express their feelings, reduce depression, improve self-concept and boost social and economic participation.

Mr Betts, a father of four, had been shearing a sheep last year when its leg flung up and hit him in the eye socket, knocking his head back.

“The bones in his back broke and dislodged, but didn’t actually sever the spinal cord until about six days later when he woke up paralysed,” his wife Patrice Bergerson said.

“He had no movement from the neck down and he basically wanted to die. We felt like the whole world had been ripped out from underneath us.”

The last thing he wanted to do during his six-month stint in rehabilitation was to write songs, but Ms Bergerson convinced him it might be beneficial. “I never left John’s side the whole six months ... and it wasn’t until I read and listened to the songs that I fully understood how he felt,” she said.

“Even now when I listen ... it still brings tears to my eyes.”

Mr Betts said he enjoyed writing the songs with Austin Health music therapist Dr Jeanette Tamplin.

“With songwriting, it can be a bit less confronting than someone just saying, ‘how are you feeling?’,” Dr Tamplin said.

Participants are asked to write three songs: the first reflects on their life before the accident, the second on their current situation and the third looks to the future.

In Mr Betts’ song, he speaks of how he “feels like a burden, stuck in this chair and how “no amount of bourbon’s gonna take away this fear”. But by the final song, “in time, he will survive the ordeal”.

Mr Betts has since taken several steps on crutches, but still struggles to use his hands.

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