Craig Morgan committed to ‘doing what he can with what he has’ following life-changing incident

A Geelong father who was left a paraplegic following a horrific incident while riding his bike wants people to always have road safety front of mind.

Craig Morgan, pictured with Loki, is sharing his road trauma story. Picture: Alison Wynd.

Newtown man Craig Morgan’s life changed in an instant nine years ago and he’s now sharing his story in the hope it will generate more respect on our roads.

The father-of-three suffered “catastrophic injuries” when a car turning right on to the Melbourne-bound Ring Road on-ramp collided with him while he was riding his bike in November 2015.

The incident left him a paraplegic.

His injuries included a fractured skull, significant trauma to his spinal cord and punctured lungs.

He returned to work at Telstra ahead of schedule just six months later, but found the commute to Melbourne took too much time away from his family.

Mr Morgan then began working with the TAC in Geelong, first in the claims department and later in the corporate legal team.

“Spending two minutes commuting to work rather than an hour-and-a-half has been a real game changer for me in terms of being able to spend more time with my family and being a more active and present father,” he said.

“That is something I felt I wasn’t so much before my accident, and at the time probably wasn’t on the trajectory to be either.”

Geelong triathlete Craig Morgan in intensive care after the 2015 cycling accident that left him a paraplegic.

Mr Morgan sees himself as a survivor, not a victim.

“I don’t like the term disability, I have a different ability to what I used to have,” he said.

“I continue to hand cycle, I do track chair, I ski, last week I was scuba diving in Bali and I swim 2kms two to three times a week.

“I only have access to a third of my body but my attitude is to do what I can with what I have.

“I still grieve because of what happened and there are good and bad days, but the people around me, my family, help me with my approach to life.”

Mr Morgan, 53, said he felt obliged to make something good come from the incident.

“I try to encourage people to understand the vulnerability of people on bikes and get people to give space to them,” he said.

“There’s a lot more we can do to protect vulnerable road users, be it people on bikes or pedestrians, from serious injury or death.”

Mr Morgan will address the Drysdale Football Club on Thursday night, as part of the TAC’s Band Together round.

“In Geelong, footy is a bit of a religion so where we can marry the sport with road safety to minimise the number of people seriously injured or killed can only be a great thing,” he said.

Sporting clubs from across the state will wear blue armbands to pay tribute to everyone killed or injured on the state’s roads.

TAC boss Tracey Slatter said everyone had a role to play in creating a safer road network.

She said working with local sporting clubs could help embed a culture of prioritising road safety.

Originally published as Craig Morgan committed to ‘doing what he can with what he has’ following life-changing incident