A BBC presenter has told how he nearly died in a horror bicycle crash – and woke up from a coma believing it was 1952 and he was an American racing driver.
Will Glennon, 44, collided head-on with a Tesco delivery van travelling at 40mph and broke every rib, punctured a lung and suffered a massive head injury.
The last thing he remembers is finishing work on the day of the crash – and waking up in intensive care 12 weeks later thinking he was in 1950s America.
Will, a presenter on BBC Points West, said: “They tell me they asked me three questions: Where are you? What year is it? and what do you do for a living?
“I said I was in America, it was 1952 and I was a racing driver.
“Apparently I believed this was the case for some time, a week or so, I looked around at all the medical equipment around me and said ‘Who’s paying for this?’
“It took a while, and I can only now remember things from about the fourth week after the crash, it took many months for the fog to clear, it was a very slow process.”
The crash happened as Will travelled at 30mph during a bike ride near his home in Marlborough, Wilts., in October 2014
“It was a combined impact of 70mph,” he said. “I broke every rib, some of them in two places, punctured a lung and suffered a huge head injury.
“If I had not been wearing a helmet, I would have died there and then.”
He was treated at the Brain Injury Rehabilitation Unit (BIRU) at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol, where doctors told his wife Emily he probably wouldn’t survive.
“When I was in that coma, it was traumatic. But not really for me because I didn’t know, but for my wife Emily,” he said.
“At one point after a couple of days, they took her to one side and said that they didn’t think I would survive the weekend and she should prepare herself for me to die that weekend.
“When I think of Emily sitting there with me in that bed, I get very emotional. I can picture it.
“In fact, it’s only telling you about it now that is the first time I haven’t broken down thinking about it.
“One of the things about a brain injury is that you get very emotional and I would’ve broken down even two months ago, thinking about it.”
Will, who has worked at the BBC since 1998, finally returned to the screen in January.
He is now training for the Bristol Half Marathon next month and hopes to raise £2,000 for BIRU.
“When I run the half marathon, there’ll be that point at about ten miles when I want to stop,” he said.
“What will keep me going is the thought of the good people who I was in the BIRU with, who were given the same amazing care, and the people who are in there now, and it will be about trying to give something back.
“I’ll also keep going to prove something about my own recovery to myself.”
Donations can be made at https://www.gofundme.com/
