Rio Paralympics 2016: Bill Chaffey to complete amazing journey in Brazil
WHEN policeman Bill Chaffey was knocked off his bike shattering his pelvis and vertebrae his life changed in an instant.
IT wasn’t wet when Bill Chaffey set off on his bike but he knows it started drizzling soon after because in photos of the crash scene, the policemen are all wearing raincoats.
There is a photograph, too, of a small dint on a bull bar. A small smudge on the metal to mark the life-changing trauma caused when a truck carrying a load of scaffolding to a blues festival strayed into a bike lane for one moment of mayhem.
As a result Bill spent five days in an induced coma, five months in hospital and the past 10 years in a wheelchair. The unlicensed truck driver was fined $601.
“Not much, hey,” Bill says with a wry smile. “Obviously I felt the devastation for a while and went through the hard times but having been an athlete before my accident I had a determination to see just how much I could achieve after it.’’
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Ten years after the collision that nearly killed him, Bill is one of the most inspiring sportsmen in Australia, too busy on top of the world to ever feel bitter. The 39-year-old has a fifth crown to win at the world triathlon championships in Chicago next week and then there is the debut of the Paratriathlon at the Rio Paralympics, which starts a year from today, on September 7, 2016.
Outside Bill’s house high above the Tweed Valley, the warm spring sun glistens off his 20m lap pool set in a garden of perfect white stones. Bill rolls his chair around his showroom kitchen working an espresso machine that glides out of a wall at the touch of a button.
He has the upper torso of a body builder and the heart rate of a marathon runner. It’s not so much the coffee that has him buzzing but his zest for life.
In 2005, Bill was a policeman at Murwillumbah, riding 300km a week in preparation for his first ironman race at Forster. He was pedalling his way to work like he always did along the bike lane beside the Pacific Highway at Chinderah just after 6am on an otherwise unremarkable day.
He had a perfect little world going. When he was stationed at Brewarrina, out back of Bourke, he had married Vanessa, the local schoolteacher. They had a 16-month-old daughter Heidi and Vanessa was now three months pregnant with another girl.
Then a truck ran over him.
It was also the worst day of Vanessa’s life.
“There was a knock on the door and a policewoman told me there had been a terrible accident,’’ she says.
“The officer didn’t know if Bill was still alive.
“The shock of it will stay with me forever.
“If Bill wasn’t so physically fit he wouldn’t have survived. Even in a coma I’m sure he was telling himself to keep fighting.’’
Bill was scraped from the road suffering four broken vertebrae, two broken elbows and a shattered pelvis. Doctors at Tweed Heads Hospital saved his life by stopping the internal bleeding. Then he was moved to Gold Coast Hospital, where a frame was drilled into his hips to hold the seven breaks in his pelvis together. Within hours he was on his way to Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane for spinal surgery.
He was kept in a coma for five days but his competitive fire still burned.
His first words to his wife when he woke from the deep sleep were “What day is it?’’
Vanessa said, “Sunday.’’
“Thank God,” Bill replied, “I’ve still got a week to the race.’’
Husband and wife laugh at the story that typifies his unstoppable drive.
After five months of surgery and rehabilitation Bill says he was “lucky enough’’ to get out of hospital a month before the birth of his daughter Amity, who turns 10 next week.
John Maclean, a former Penrith rugby league player who had become a Paralympic hero, encouraged Bill to continue his love for triathlons as a wheelchair athlete.
Bill hasn’t looked back.
His days patrolling the beat are over but he works three days a week as a legal adviser alongside the police prosecutor at Tweed Heads, helping with briefs of evidence.
It gives him time to train four hours a day, six days a week.
As he sips on his coffee and prepares for a 90-minute ride on his handcycle up the steep hills of Murwillumbah, Bill says he is tapering for the world titles starting on September 18 and is now doing short, sharp sprint work.
He is priming himself to explode for the 750m swim in Lake Michigan that will be followed by 20km on the hand bike and 5km in the wheelchair. If he wins he’s guaranteed a place in Rio.
Bill competed in his first wheelchair race, a half ironman event on the Gold Coast in 2008 and has competed in Para-Tri world titles on the Coast and in Budapest, Beijing, Auckland and London, winning four world championships.
He might have won last year in Edmonton, Canada too, had he not tumbled out of his wheelchair and cracked his hip the day before he was due to jet off to defend his world title.
But already this year, he’s raced in Madrid and London and he’s hoping to celebrate success in Chicago with Vanessa and their two girls.
He says Maclean and another Paralympian great Kurt Fearnley have inspired him on his remarkable journey.
“But you know the bloke I used to absolutely love watching,” he says.
“Lleyton Hewitt. Mate he would chase down everything no matter how tough it was. No matter what, that bloke would never ever give up.”
Originally published as Rio Paralympics 2016: Bill Chaffey to complete amazing journey in Brazil
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