Noah’s story

Noah was out celebrating a friend’s birthday when he leaned against the promenade railing on Brighton seafront.

The 18 year old lost his balance, fell backwards and hit the ground ten metres below.

Noah arrived at the RHN mid-2019 to begin his rehabilitation programme. Since arriving, he progressed quickly in a short period of time.

“All of the staff here have been amazing. I’ve done a lot of work with the physiotherapy team, and I have built up enough strength to have two sessions of physio a day. I practice my walking, balancing and even a bit of weight training. When I first arrived, I couldn’t walk at all.”

Noah has also benefitted from speech and language therapy (SLT), having progressed from a communications board, to speaking.

“The SLT has helped me with other things too, like my ability to eat. I’m due to move off pureed foods and onto and bite-sized foods. I’ve had a few occupational therapy (OT) sessions where they’ve taught me how to make soup, curries and pizza, but I’m really looking forward to being able to eat lasagna again!”

During his time at the RHN, Noah wrote a song about his experience in music therapy and, as a keen rugby fan, has taken five trips to watch matches at Harlequins rugby stadium in Twickenham.

“I have visitors all of the time. I’m sure the hospital staff get bored of me constantly being surrounded by people, but I’m glad I’m allowed to have so many visitors as not a lot of hospitals allow that.” 

Noah recently spent Christmas at home with his family after an OT assessment of his home and the RHN provided ambulance driver training to his dad.

“I’m looking forward to being able to go back home. In the future, I hope I’ll be able to go to university to study business and marketing, and then eat as much food as possible!”