Coach's long road to recovery

Paul Oakins known to me and many in Ickwell / Northill Parish simply as Coach. His hard work and dedication to the Ickwell Cricket Club is appreciated by all of us.

 

Coach has been training and developing Ickwell cricketers (youth through to 1st and 2nds teams) for as long as I have known him. When we are all enjoying a cold beer on a Friday evening, he is always busy coaching and developing the youth cricket teams; he is a part of the landscape in Ickwell, a truly wonderful man.

Cricket is Paul’s life, he also coaches for the Cricket East Pathway and has pushed several of his youth squad through to county recognition. He has managed Bedfordshire County Cricket Club and is still a keen and active member of their committee. He loves nothing more than going to watch his youngsters play and helping them improve.

 

August 11th was unfortunately a day that changed his life.

 

Paul was taking his son to a cricket match and had complained earlier of a backache. He took some painkillers and thought nothing further of it. An hour or so passed and he said he started to feel his hands and legs go numb.

 

An ambulance was immediately called.

 

An MRI scan quickly showed that his spinal cord was being compressed by two of his discs. The surgeon said that they had to operate immediately and warned Paul that they had no idea of the permanent damage that had been caused. The surgery took place, and it became apparent very quickly that Paul was paralysed from the chest down, he had very little movement/control in his hands and no feeling at all in the majority of his body. This has been a life changing and traumatic time for Paul and his family and he now faces a very long road to recovery.

 

It is not known how much feeling Paul will regain, what is known is the best chance he has is to be somewhere offering a high level of rehabilitation to hopefully enable him to live an independent life once again.

 

He currently sits on a hospital ward in a long NHS queue to be transferred to a specialist facility where rehab can commence. It has already been 5 weeks and the NHS has no idea how much longer it might be before something becomes available.

 

His partner Kate and I have been looking into alternative options and from all our research the best place we can find is ‘The Royal Buckinghamshire Hospital’ where they specialise in the management and rehabilitation of neurological conditions and complex spinal injuries. Whilst I am more than happy to contribute to the cost, unfortunately the £7000/week is more than I can cover on my own. It is estimated that Coach could be there for between 4-12 weeks so I am hopeful that we can try to raise the funds to cover it and hence setting up this GoFundMe page.

 

Please give generously if you can, here is an opportunity to give something back for a man who has given so much to the community.

As a friend to Paul, I will withdraw the money from GoFundMe and send it to Royal Buckinghamshire Hospital to cover the cost of Paul's rehabilitation.

Any help received will be much appreciated

Matthew Evans