A retired Tasmanian teacher who spent 42 years educating children across northern Tasmania is fighting to return home after a cycling accident left him paralysed and dependent on a ventilator to breathe.
Warren McDonough, 70, broke his neck on February 5 when his front wheel struck a pothole while he was cycling downhill near his Launceston home.
He suffered a C1 spinal injury, leaving him without movement in his limbs and unable to breathe without assistance.
His wife, Deborah McDonough, was cycling with him when the accident happened.
She said she heard a crunch.
“Then I looked at him and he didn’t have a front wheel and he was coming in to crash into me,” she told Pulse.
“But somehow he’s managed to swerve out into the middle of the road.”
“I wish he’d hit me actually, ’cause it would’ve helped.”
“I don’t know whether it would’ve taken some of the impact off him.”
Warren had no pulse and had turned blue when a passing driver, who happened to be an ICU nurse, stopped and began chest compressions.
“That nurse saved his life,” Deborah said.
An ambulance arrived about 15 to 20 minutes later and Warren was airlifted to Hobart.
Deborah said he was then flown to Melbourne’s Austin Hospital with the family having to then lobby politicians to keep him there for specialist spinal care.
She said Premier Jeremy Rockliff intervened after she wrote to politicians seeking help.
Warren has now spent six months in hospital where he has been relearning how to speak and eat.
But the family faces another challenge – finding a way to pay for the care and equipment he will need to return home.
Because Warren is over 65, he does not qualify for NDIS support and will instead rely on aged care funding.
Deborah said the funding, which is capped at $65,000 a year, would not come close to covering Warren’s needs including full-time carers.
“That’s not even gonna pay one person’s wage, is it?” she said.
“He needs two carers at all times, so that’s, like, six carers a day if you have three shifts.”
“The carers are gonna have to be us, the family.”
Deborah described the situation as “age discrimination”, saying other people with similar spinal injuries were preparing to return home with NDIS support because they were under 65.
“There are other people here with the same injury as Warren, but because they’re under 65, they’re interviewing carers for when they go home,” she said.
The family has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help pay for the specialised equipment Warren needs, including a wheelchair costing up to $80,000, home modifications, a hospital-grade bed and an accessible vehicle.
Before his accident, Warren spent more than four decades teaching physical education at schools across northern Tasmania, including Kings Meadows, Campbell Town, Prospect, Lilydale and Exeter, where he finished his career.
Deborah said Warren had spent his life supporting his family and the northern Tasmanian community.
“Warren has spent four decades building up the community of Northern Tasmania and supporting his family with every ounce of his energy,” she said.
“He has so much left to give and his grandchildren need him.”
To donate, the family’s GoFundMe campaign is available here.
