I Get Knocked Down (But I Get Up Again)

I had hoped my first blog post of the year would be more positive. I’ve recorded and edited the first episode of my podcast. Work on the third and final book in the Spirits of Vengeance saga is coming along well. I was looking forward to getting back to my YouTube channel, Kickstart This!

But then some absent-minded clown decided to drive through a red light while I was crossing the road and knock me into next month. I’m typing this with one hand, as I’ve suffered a broken wrist, broken ribs, broken leg and fractured skull with a good dose of concussion, plus a splattering of bumps and bruises.

I am alive by sheer luck, and because my dog, my sweet beautiful Amber, who has no recall, managed to run home and alert my wife. Apparently all I asked in the ambulance was whether Amber was safe. I cannot contemplate a world where she was struck by the car instead of me.

I am also here because of the paramedics and hospital staff who treated me. I was lucky enough to meet the paramedics who rescued me, and made sure to thank them for their service before I left hospital.

The driver has since been charged. He claimed to both the police and the paramedics that I had jumped out in front of his car. Thankfully we live in an age of CCTV, with footage clearly showing him careering through the red light. I can understand the fear and panic that must have been surging through him, but to lay the blame at the person you nearly killed, and then try and fight with the people who were caring for me at the side of the road… how low do you have to be? You want to take a good, hard look in the mirror if that is your reaction.

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks healing up, taking a cacophony of painkillers and doing very little else besides watching TV and dwelling on how my life could have ended on the cold streets of Glasgow because of one person’s idiotic mistake.

But in the immortal words of Chumbawumba, I get knocked down, but I get up again. This isn’t the first time I’ve been waylaid by injuries. I’ve been having flashbacks to the time I broke my leg in Peru and spent six weeks in hospital there until I could fly home.

For the moment, I am simply grateful to be alive, to have friends and family who care for me, and a backlog of TV shows to watch (because I can’t write and I can’t play video games, except for Balatro, at which I am now an expert).

These things, they tend to bring into focus what is important in life. I hit the ground running this year with some passion projects of mine. When I am fully healed and able, I’m going to continue doing what I love, namely writing. I also want to get back to helping charities make videos, as well as helping other creatives through my freelance script reading, design work and crowdfunding channel.

I’m hoping to share some more concrete details of the things I have planned in 2025 in a future blog.

But for now, I am going to rest and be thankful that I am still here.

Andrew