10th September Cancelled due to Hot Weather. However, I completed this walk independently alongside Nicola Youles on Sunday 1st October 2023.

However, the official walk was rescheduled to Sunday 23rd June 2024, which ironically marks the 6th anniversary of my accident. So, Nicola and I are going to walk it again!

On Saturday 9th September, East Anglian Air Ambulance cancelled the event scheduled for 10th September due to hot weather. I am hoping they reschedule this for a new date in the near future.

Saturday 23rd June 2018 was a gloriously sunny morning and myself and three other friends had planned leisurely motorbike ride with coffee in North Norfolk. I do not remember much else of that day other than setting off and a quick stop at CJ Ball on Salhouse Road, Norwich where one of the guys had his bike serviced.

Five weeks later, I awoke on the Neurosciences Critical Care Unit at Addenbrooke's hospital having no idea I had collided with a car and suffered a severe traumatic brain injury as a result of going through a wall head first. I learned that neither paramedics nor doctors believed I would survive the severity of the injuries I had sustained. The accident had occurred in North East Norfolk on the Coast Road and the East of England Ambulance Service had reached me within 7 minutes, closely followed by the Police and the East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA), the latter of whom had flown me to Addenbrooke's Hospital following inducing me into a coma and taking full control of my breathing.

At the time of the accident, I was also in the final stage of my PhD study at Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia (UEA). Finishing writing the last couple of chapters of, and submitting my thesis was the first thing on my mind when I awoke from my coma. However, I required substantial rehabilitation including having to learn to walk again. My behaviour was also impulsive and disinhibited meaning much of my rehabilitation involved input to the point it felt like learning basic social skills from scratch. I spent a further five weeks in hospital, but it would be at least another 2 years until I could finally finish the last parts of my PhD thesis and submit it.

But I persisted with a resolute sense of purpose and unyielding perseverance to succeed. While this was exceptionally difficult at times, I was very fortunate to have help along the way from friends and family as well as the NHS and additional therapy arranged by the solicitor who was instructed by my insurer. With further support also offered by UEA alongside the NHS, I submitted my PhD Thesis in July 2020, passing my viva in October 2020 but due to COVID-19, was unable to have a graduation ceremony in person at the UEA until 2022. However, with some restrictions lifted, EAAA gave me a very unique and special graduation in 2021 with the very same helicopter (G-RESU) that took me to Addenbrooke's three years previously.

In my recovery, EAAA have been a key ingredient as their Aftercare function really helped me piece together several weeks of my life I had no memory of. Furthermore, they have created a thriving peer-support community of patients and relatives, which I still feel privileged to be a part of. This group has proven to be a safe space to explore the changes I have experienced while also enabling me to stand alongside others experiencing something similar. To this day, EAAA remains a major source of encouragement and a charity I have fallen deeply in love with.

EAAA receives no regular government funding and relies entirely on the support of the community. The crews are tasked an average of 8 times a day across the two bases, with each mission costing in the region of £3,750. They can reach anywhere in the region within 25 minutes when every second can make the difference to a patient in their time of need.

For Trek 24, I am joining other aftercare service users and two nurses, forming an "EAAA Aftercare Group". This as much about raising awareness of the work EAAA does as it is about fundraising.

I have accepted that my recovery will be lifelong and involves getting to know "a new Steve". However, and in short, EAAA played a major part in helping me overcome insurmountable odds, enabling me to accomplish things many thought were no longer possible. I'm now living a career dream by working as a Lecturer at Norwich Business School, alongside some of the people who have inspired me the most. So, most important of all, I'm trekking to celebrate this wonderful charity that makes significant impact for all the right reasons and I would be very grateful for any and all support. EAAA not only saved my life, they gave me a new one of sorts. #TogetherWeSaveLives