Speaking from CSP Congress 2011, Dr Gill Hicks explains the role of physiotherapy in her life following the 7/7 bombings in 2005.
Dr Hicks, who lost both legs below the knee, she said she could only stand at the speakers’ lectern thanks to ‘imaginative, professional and dedicated’ physiotherapists.
She paid tribute to physios who had given her ‘the confidence to fall’.
‘And if I have the confidence to fall then I have the confidence to stand, and the confidence to make a step,’ she said.
Dr Hicks recalled physios formulating a rehab plan for her during the three months she spent in St Thomas’ Hospital immediately after the blasts, and urging her to engage her muscles as she lay in intensive care.
Being able to catch a ball of bandages thrown by her physio was the start of a ‘really interesting journey’.
Before the bombings she knew nothing of the world of amputees, she said. ‘There is this whole parallel world that physios operate in that I had no idea about, that you work with every day.’
‘I spend moments when I’m completely in awe of the body’s ability to survive and achieve,’ she told delegates.
The need to ‘rewire’ her brain, to be able to make simple steps such as being able to cross the road, also required assistance from her ever-supportive physio team.
‘They became a complete extension of me,’ she said. ‘I truly believe that I was saved.’
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