A dad has been left paralysed after falling downstairs – while SLEEPWALKING.
Former caretaker Colin White, 56, went to bed with his wife as usual but woke in a heap at the bottom of the staircase unable to move.
He could not move and had searing pain running through his body.
Colin, who is married to wife Jo White, is now paralysed from the hip up and is in need of constant care and assistance.
Nursing assistance Jo, 55, said: “Our lives have changed completely.
“It was like he has just stepped into darkness.
“He went to bed as normal, we were talking a bit in bed and then we went to sleep.
“And all of a sudden I heard this thud, it was around three or four in the morning.
“I thought he had gone to the toilet but when I got up to look I just saw him in a heap at the bottom of the stairs.
“I thought it knocked him out and I could see blood coming from his head – I thought he was dead.”
Doctors say the father-of-one has damaged his spinal cord in the accident leaving him with Tetraplegia which restricts movement of the limbs.
Tetraplegia, also known as quadriplegia, is paralysis caused by illness or injury that results in the partial or total loss of use of all four limbs and torso.
Jo says her husband, who would “regularly sleepwalk”, cannot remember falling down the stairs which is why doctors and his family believe he was sleep walking.
She adds: “He would regularly sleepwalk before this but he would normally make enough noise for me to wake up and bring him back to bed.
“When he fell all he kept saying was ‘where am I’ because he just didn’t know where he was – it put him into darkness.
“I said come on get up, and all he said was ‘I can’t move, I can’t move’ – so I called an ambulance.
“He doesn’t remember any of it and his brain is still all there, which is good.”
The incident happened on 16 December 2017 and since then Colin has began intensive rehabilitation at a specialist spinal unit in Sheffield as well as weekly physiotherapy sessions.
Colin is now able to walk a few steps with assistance where he was previously wheelchair bound.
Jo added: “He can now walk a few steps with assistance and a walking frame – but he has to have somebody by him.
“His hands are not great, he can’t make a fist so he has to where a feeding strap so he can use a knife and fork.
“It is really hard to deal with for him – It has been a totally different life for us.
“It’s so scary because you never expect something like that to happen in your home.”
Jo, who is now a full-time career for her husband, says it has been a tough journey for the married couple of 35 years as Colin learns to walk again.
She says Colin is desperate to be able to get outside and sit in the garden listening to the birds, which was an activity he enjoyed doing before his fall.
But the couple’s home in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk currently has steps out the back leading to the garden, which means Colin is unable to access it.
They have set up a campaign to try and raise £5,000 in order to build a conservatory and make alterations to the downstairs layout to make things easier for him.
The St Edmundsbury Male Voice Choir, in Suffolk is hosting a concert in aid of Colin on Thursday, February 7.
To donate contact Jo White on Facebook.
