Buderim dad Chris Perry’s miracle recovery after becoming paralysed

A Sunshine Coast dad is swinging a golf club less than a year after he broke his neck and back in a freak camping accident.

Chris Perry is using golf to recover from spinal injuries. Picture: Patrick Woods.

A Sunshine Coast dad is playing golf less than a year after a horrific spinal injury that doctors expected to leave him paralysed for life.

Buderim man Chris Perry said “one per cent better at a time” was the motto that led him to a recovery against all odds.

Mr Perry, who is turning 40 this year, broke his neck and damaged the C3 and C4 vertebrae in his spine in June last year, paralysing him from the neck down.

Less than a year later, and after immense work, he is up walking around and playing indoor golf with an incredible amount of mobility.

He has shared his story to provide hope and inspiration for others suffering the same injuries.

Chris Perry is recovering from spinal injuries. Picture: Patrick Woods.

Less than a year ago Mr Perry and his family were on a camping holiday with friends.

“I jumped on my bike to go collect firewood and I wasn’t going fast, just pedalling along,” he said.

Chris Perry is recovering from spinal injuries. Picture: Patrick Woods.

There was a chain between two bollards that he didn’t see.

“One minute I was on my bike and the next minute I was on my back looking at the sky and couldn’t move,” Mr Perry said.

“I hit the ground absolutely parallel flat on my back and broke my neck and damaged my spinal cord.”

It was a blur for Mr Perry from the accident to the hospital but he knew the situation was quite real when he was going in for surgery.

His wife was told that he only had a one per cent chance of walking again and he would be on a breathing tube for the rest of his life.

“My thought process in the hospital was not believing the injury was as bad as I thought it was, so my mindset was I was always going to recover,” Mr Perry said.

The first movement he could make was barely wiggling his toes.

“The doctors said it was just spasms but I they were actually doing it on my command,” he said.

“As the swelling around the spinal damage subsided, I started getting back more movements day by day.”

“I started off with my left hand, which I’ve got pretty good recovery back now but I’m still working on my right arm which I couldn’t move at all for four months.”

Mr Perry said it was all about repetition of the same exercises day after day just to get little movements back.

“When I first stood up by myself, I felt like I was standing on ice, like sharp ice picks,” he said.

“The sensation was like standing on hundreds of sharp objects but the more I did it, the more sensation I got back and the pain slowly went away.”

Mr Perry said as a whole the recovery has been nothing but uphill for him.

“A lot of mates have seen me now and they ask me if I’m back to normal now,” he said.

Chris Perry is recovering from spinal injuries. Picture: Patrick Woods.

“I have to say, no, I don’t think I’ll ever get back to normal, I hope I do, but 80 per cent is probably where I’ll get to.”

A vocal advocate for men’s health and wellness, Mr Perry has shared his journey on podcasts, in the media and at fundraising events for Wishlist, the foundation that helped him through his five months in hospital.

Mr Perry’s advice for people going through the same ordeal as him was not to set the bar too high.

“Set your goals quite small and build on them with little wins,” he said.

“Once you get all those little wins, you’ll find you’ve gotten to that goal that’s been a month or two away.”

Mr Perry said recovery from spinal injuries was a “very slow process that you just keep chipping away at”.

His physios were shocked at the speed of his recovery, with Mr Perry completing recovery programs in a fraction of the time they estimated.

“I was putting in the work about eight hours every day for six days a week.”

Mr Perry said he was lucky to be fit and healthy before the accident, playing Aussie rules and indoor golf and believed that helped immensely.

Chris Perry is recovering from spinal injuries. Picture: Patrick Woods.

A dedicated sportsman since childhood, Chris now also mentors a senior side at the North Shore Jets AFL Club in Mudjimba, offering guidance on goals or how to overcome setbacks.

With the rain over the last three months, Mr Perry has been doing rehab via indoor golf at X Golf Maroochydore.

“With the spinal cord injury, I’m quite tight around everywhere so I really need to be able to go through a process of stretching and strength building in the morning before I even take a swing,” he said.

He said golf helped with his balance and the combination of muscle movements in the swing slowly brought back mobility.

He said looking back on the recovery page his wife set up for him on social media helped him through any down days.

“Looking back at where I’ve progressed from the start really motivated me to keep going,” Mr Perry said.

Originally published as Buderim dad Chris Perry’s miracle recovery after becoming paralysed