Whether he was rock climbing, scaling a munro, skiing, running or just chilling beside his campervan, Niall Harris was in his element in the great outdoors.

There would be long days spent taking on the challenging north face of Ben Nevis in the depths of winter, scrambling across narrow ridges in the Cairngorms to be rewarded with stunning scenery, climbing on craggy sea cliffs north of Ullapool, and exploring peaks in Wales, the Lake District, France and Spain.

Ex-Territorial Army, even his work as an outdoor professional at an Edinburgh public school was all about embracing the great outdoors and encouraging the next generation to find the same passion he had to explore, challenge his body and savour the thrills of a sporting life.

There is an element of irony, then, that it would be a relatively low-speed tumble from his mountain bike on the last run of a pleasant August day that would leave the all-round action man almost completely paralysed from the neck down.

“It was just unfortunate,” he says – an immense understatement considering his devastating injuries.

“I had lost a bit of speed, it was maybe a bit bunched up on track and I went over a drop of maybe about 6ft.”

Granted, it might not sound terribly dramatic. However, Niall, 40, landed slap on his head. It would be several weeks later before he conjured up the will to ask doctors how badly injured he was. The news was not good.

The impact caused devastating injuries similar to those sustained by original Superman actor Christopher Reeve when a fall from his horse shattered two vertebrae and caused a bleed and swelling which damaged his spinal cord, leaving him paralysed.

Doctors were worried that, like Reeve, Niall might never regain any movement from the neck down again. The worst scenario was that he might have faced ventilation for life.

However, what unfolded in the months that followed is a remarkable lesson in spirit, acceptance and sheer determination not to let something as dramatic as life-changing injuries drag you down.

And a year later, living in a nursing home and dreaming of the day he might be able to feed himself unaided, Niall, undaunted, is already looking forward to his next jaunt up a Munro.

Unlike before when he might have opted to run uphill, of course, it will be in an all-terrain wheelchair.

‘No regrets’

Yet in an incredibly upbeat display of resilience – and in a message to all outdoors types not to let fear of what might happen stop their fun – he even counts himself as lucky to have now discovered new ways to spend time he might otherwise have enjoyed exploring the great outdoors. “I look back and think I’ve had good times,” he says. “I’m not at all regretful about losing things.

“This is what my life will be like now and all those things I used to do, like running and hillwalking, I can replace with other things.”

He adds: “I used to get that fear of missing out so I was always away climbing with friends when I could have been with my family. Now my social life will improve – I’ll have more time to socialise rather than being away and, besides, there are wheelchairs that will take me up a Munro.”

Niall had been enjoying a day’s mountain biking at Innerleithen’s downhill trails about an hour from his Jedburgh home when the last run of the day beckoned.
He remembers some riders in front moving slowly. As one allowed him to pass, Niall pushed ahead only to plunge down the 6ft drop.

“The week before I had been in my campervan up north climbing,” he reflects. “I did a ridge in the Cairngorms and there were any number of times I could have fallen and landed on my head – I would have been in serious trouble if it had happened there.

But then there was a guy in the spinal injuries unit at hospital who had slipped while shaving and was paralysed from the chest down.

“People think it’s going to be something dramatic that gets you, but more often than not it’s something quite simple that goes really wrong.”

His extraction from the track took three painful hours, during which he was conscious and aware that he had lost feeling from the neck down.

Hallucinations

HE was intubated on the way to hospital, endured terrifying hallucinations on the way, and spent six weeks in intensive care “lying there, looking at my hands”, he says. A series of problems – a troublesome bed sore, post-ventilation pneumonia, blockages on his lungs – brought complications which might not be expected from a spinal injury.

Eating, going to the toilet and getting dressed are all still impossible without help. Now living in a Midlothian nursing home, the toughest hurdle, he recalls, was coping with hospital Covid restrictions between September and March which limited family to “window” visits. It was, he recalls, “like a prison sentence” in a body that was “a floppy mess”.

“There’s no reference point in time. The mental struggle is the worst part, and Covid was brutal on everyone involved.”

Some may have plunged into despair. Niall, however, was motivated by every tiny movement.

He began updating his Instagram page, sharing each small sign of progress with friends and family with surprisingly upbeat and even comic captions.

“Looks like someone has been at my neck with a staple gun,” he quipped, sharing an X-ray image of his injuries showing pins in a fracture and displaced vertebrae. The swelling and bleed within the C3/C4 area of the spinal cord had left it “hanging by a thread” but tiny movements in his right hand were cause for hope.

“Working the guns in the gym. Confident enough to take on any kitten in an arm wrestle,” he wrote alongside a short video taken from his hospital bed at the Queen Elizabeth National Spinal Injuries Unit, showing his right arm hooked to a pulley.  

Hand movement

IN another, posted just after he had progressed to a chin-operated wheelchair, he told his followers: “Passed my driving test. Notice the near perfect demonstration of an emergency stop.”And one, from nine weeks ago, shows his delight at finding movement in his left hand. “This happened on Saturday. Left hand wants in on the action. Inspiration from my friends visit. Personally I think it was IPA.”

Encouraged by his progress, friends and family have rallied to help raise money to buy an all-terrain wheelchair and adaptive equipment which will allow him to lead as full a life as possible at home, to return to work and, importantly, once again enjoy the outdoors. Their JustGiving page had a target of £10,000 – it now stands at almost £26,200.

“Despite this massive life event, Niall has shown incredible fortitude, good humour and positivity. He knows there will be many challenges and that it will be a long journey,” says fundraiser Gemma Murdoch on his fundraising page. He has the map out and is ‘packing his rucksack’ ready for the ups and downs ahead.”

Life won’t be the same, Niall adds, but could be worse. “This could have happened in any number of ways, a car crash or a fall or a stroke. There are many ways you can be paralysed – it could even have been a chest infection.
“I’m lucky. I could have been ventilated for life.”

And in a final message to those heading outdoors this weekend, he insists they should keep going for it.

“There’s a big reward from risk and, anyway, life is risk.