'Help us bring our father home' - Telford family fundraising to bring paralysed dad home after cycling accident

The Jenkins family need to raise £15,000 to help get their father Alan some normality, after he was paralysed from the chest down.

Alan has been away from his home since September, when he almost died in a crash during the New Forest 103-mile cycling sportive.

He suffered a spinal cord injury and was airlifted to the neuro-intensive care unit in Southampton

His family were told he was unlikely to survive, but he pulled through. Later they were told he may never come off his ventilator, but after being moved to the critical care unit in Stoke, he was weaned off it and was able to able to breathe independently, swallow and enjoy his first meal since the accident.

Moved to the Midlands centre for spinal injury in Oswestry in January, he underwent physiotherapy that allowed him to sit in a wheelchair.

He has made phenomenal strides in his treatment – but his family now say they need to raise money to bring him home and to enable him to live more normally.

Since April, he has been at the Morris Care Centre in Wellington. The family home that he and wife Celia lived in for 21 years has been sold and the couple have bought a nearby bungalow in St Georges more suitable for his needs.

But it needs adaptations to make it suitable for his needs. The family also needs a wheelchair accessible vehicle for him and want to be able to buy him a wheelchair with technology that will allow him to move it himself.

Celia said: "He was an amazing man before the accident and I think that has been shown in the way he has coped with everything."

His family have now launched a fundraising page and are appealing for the people of Telford to help. In the year following the accident, Alan has made remarkable strides in his treatment, but his family say the next stage is for him to be able to find a new sense of normality at home.

The Jenkins family has praised the NHS for the “amazing” care he has received since his accident.

Alan worked for Bearing Man in Halesfield before the accident. He and Celia, 57, a buyer for Torton Bodies Limited on Holyhead Road, have three children, Sarah Hassett, 32, a Cardiff-based dentist, 30-year-old Louise, a paramedic who also lives in St Georges, and 25-year-old Andrew, a quantity surveyor who now lives in Kent.

Just months before his accident, Sarah welcomed her first child, Elliott, now one, a first grandchild for Alan and Celia.

Andrew said Elliot’s arrival had been a real inspiration to Alan. He said: “The accident was a massive shock, three weeks after he went into hospital we were told that his organs were shutting down and that we could come and say our goodbyes.

“Initially, he went into hospital, he was paralysed but he was breathing but, after three weeks he had sepsis. But by a miracle, he pulled through and he is still here.

“He is paralysed but I think being so fit and active has helped him to pull through. Elliott has been a real inspiration to my dad and made him want to be here, he wants to see his grandson grow up.”

Now he is on the road to recovery, the whole family want to be in a position where Alan can be taken back to the bungalow and begin living a more normal life again.

They want to raise £15,000 for a wheelchair-accessible vehicle, a wheelchair that he may be able to operate with the use of his head and also the adaptations to the bungalow that has replaced the family home.

Though Alan and Celia have some savings, it will not go far to cover all of his needs and much of the grants they can apply for are means tested, so the amount they get can be limited.

Celia paid tribute to her husband, saying he is always smiling through his treatment and they are hopeful for the future.

But she it had been an emotional rollercoaster for the family.

Celia said: “He has had a visitor every day since he has been in hospital and I think that is testament to him.

“People keep expecting me to have a meltdown but I am quite a practical person and I’d rather concentrate on making things happen that can happen and not worrying about things that can’t happen.

“The treatment he has received since his accident has been amazing, you couldn’t buy better care.” She added that the family were finding the fundraising hard, but said it was necessary for them to help bring Alan back home. She said: “We’re a very positive family. We are actually finding it quite difficult to be the ones asking for funding because we’re normally the ones doing the fundraising.

“We need to get him home because the care home just isn’t the right environment for him, he is an intelligent man and needs more stimulation.”

To donate, visit justgiving.com/crowdfunding/alanjenkins