Amputee able seaman says Invictus Games are 'best thing ever invented'

Do the Invictus Games really matter? Aren't they just a feel-good lark for the TV cameras?

Ask amputee Mark Daniels and he’ll set you straight. They’re ‘‘the best thing ever invented’’, in his eyes.

Nearly killed in an accident just three years ago, amputee Mark Daniels is competing in four sports at the 2018 Invictus Games. Pictured at Sydney's Olympic Park Aquatic Centre. Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Sport, he’ll tell you, saved his life. And for him, that's not a throwaway line.

Daniels is just 25 but a few years ago he wanted to die.

Now, fit and healthy, the Royal Australian Navy able seaman is about to represent Australia against fellow injured and sick service people and veterans from around the world at the Games, which start in Sydney on Saturday.

He wants to show others that catastrophic injury need not break them.

In December 2015, Daniels was riding down a Perth street when a turning car collided with his motorbike.

Very lucky to be alive, Daniels, who was in a coma for 10 days, suffered a broken neck, ruptured kidney, punctured lung and split femoral artery and had his leg amputated below the knee.

He was 22.

Within four months of the accident, he took to the gym, lifting weights and squatting with one leg.

'I refuse to be defined by my disability': Navy able seaman Mark Daniels.Credit: Oliver Carter, defence.gov.au

He was back at work in a wheelchair within three months and wearing a prosthetic leg within six months.

Rock bottom actually came 14 months after the accident, when he was told his leg would need a further amputation, to above the knee.

He’d spent so long getting strong, feeling human again.

‘‘But I had to pretty much to throw all that out the window – all my strength – and start from scratch. I was back in a wheelchair, back in a hospital bed.’’

‘‘There were days when I was suicidal, when I didn’t even want to get out of bed.’’

But on good days he would go to the gym. He started lifting weights again. He’s in the navy. He likes routine.

‘‘Fitness saved me. I’d prove to myself that I wasn’t disabled because I could powerlift as much anyone else in the gym, if not more.’’

Now, just three years after the accident, Daniels has entered four sports at the 2018 Invictus Games – wheelchair rugby, swimming, volleyball and indoor rowing.

There’s a degree of defiance at why he chose such a gruelling program.

‘‘I refuse to be defined by my disability,’’ he said. ‘‘So basically I’ve just thrown myself at everything.

"I’ve found out I’m reasonably good at some things, and stuck with them.’’

Bring it on: Able Seaman Mark Daniels from the Royal Australian Navy trains for the Invictus Games swimming at Sydney's Olympic Park Aquatic Centre.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Daniels, who grew up in Brisbane, joined the navy in 2012 and has worked as a marine technician — a ship's mechanic — at the HMAS Cerberus base near Melbourne and at HMAS Stirling in Perth.

Next year he will return to Cerberus to study to become a Navy physical training instructor.

He was already sporty before his accident, doing wakeboarding, snow boarding, rugby and martial arts.

Today, Daniels is into obstacle course racing, where he competes against abled bodied athletes and heads a disabled athlete team.

Earlier this year, he competed in the Australian Ninja Warrior TV program.

‘‘I’m back wakeboarding and snowboarding. I’ve been competing on the international circuit for paratriathlon [triathlon for the disabled].’’

It sounds rather strenuous. ‘‘People tell me I’m insane pretty much every day of my life.’’ he admits.

To other young people who have suffered catastrophic injury, he says. ‘‘Basically you’re never defined by your disabilities, you’re defined by your mindframe.

‘‘It’s up to you whether you choose to put yourself out there and try and make the most out of your situation."

This is his first Invictus Games but he is already a big fan.

‘‘I think the Invictus Games is the best thing ever invented. I think [founder] Prince Harry’s done an absolutely amazing thing.

‘‘The 72 of us in the Australian team are probably all in agreeance that without the Invictus Games and having this thing to channel ourselves into, our lives wouldn’t be like this.

‘‘You’ve got a purpose again. While I’m still working, a lot of the guys aren’t anymore, and when you’ve spent your whole life in the military and you’re used to that routine, and how regimented it is, now it gives you something to get up and train for.’’

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