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A group of four friends are raising money to get their former policeman pal a prosthetic, after a recent seizure resulting from trauma sustained in a tragic car accident nearly 20 years ago inadvertently led him to lose the fingers on his left hand.
Nick Swindells (50) has been suffering from intermittent seizures since 2014 as a result of the car crash, which happened 10 years earlier.
In 2004, he was in the car with his then-wife and daughter, when "a driver suddenly came out of a junction, T-boned the car and put us into a field".
His wife sadly passed away, while Nick sustained what he thought were only minor injuries. However, in 2014 he had his first seizure which doctors said was a delayed reaction to the trauma sustained in the crash.
Despite taking medication for them, the seizures come on intermittently. Since the initial episode, he's had one in 2017, one in 2019 and most recently in November 2021. It was the latest seizure the inadvertently led to the loss of his hand.
"I was just getting ready to leave, I jumped in the shower when I felt the onset of a seizure... It's a strong dizzy feeling, like you've stood up too quickly. So, I knelt down to try and brace myself," Nick recalled to Express.
Pictured: Nick sustained serious burns following a seizure in the shower.
Before he entered a catatonic state, Nick accidentally knocked the shower thermostat onto hot. He was left exposed to water of up to 70°C for around 15 minutes.
"My next recollection is being on all fours on the floor of my bathroom... I called out to my two boys and they phoned the ambulance."
His family wrapped him up in cold towels and sat him on the edge of the bed while they waited. Ironically, Nick says his overriding memory was of feeling "freezing cold".
He was immediately rushed to hospital. With his burns deemed too severe to treat locally, he was flown out to Salisbury District Hospital and placed in the Intensive Care Unit.
Pictured: Nick in hospital following the accident.
More than a third of Nick's body was covered in third-degree burns, which covered his finger tips, arms, chest and back.
He spent more than two months in hospital, undergoing 10 operations, including extensive skin grafts which saw tissue from his legs used to repair the damage to his chest and arms.
"Everything was successful, but they couldn't save the fingers on my left hand. I still had nerve endings and everything, but there was no tissue to graft anything onto. The alteranative was a lot more operations, a lot more hospital time, so this was the easiest way."
All five of Nick's fingers on his left hand were amputated.
As part of Nick's physiotherapy following the accident, he was given a course on adapting to life without a limb.
"You never realise how often you use your non-dominant hand. Putting clothes on in the morning, getting ready... all the things you don't think about, they take you through... simple things like using a stove or a knife."
It's those things which have made an impression on him since the accident: "It's all those little simple things that you take for granted. If I want to sip my coffee whilst I'm on the phone, I can't do it.
"Its going to restaurants! If I fancy a steak or something, unless I'm with someone I know really well, I can't eat it, everything has to be done for me."
As a result, Nick is hoping to get a prosthetic hand, made by UK company Naked Prosthetics.
Pictured: Four of Nick's friends are playing five consecutive rounds of golf to help raise money for his prosthetic hand.
The prosthetic will zip on, and allow Nick to move the fingers to whatever position he sees fit. However, the cost of the fitted partial hand is £2,500. The cost of each finger attachment is £3,700. The thumb attachment alone is £9,500.
Nick is a keen golfer, and a regular at La Moye Golf Club.
Four of his friends – "the usual suspects", as he calls them – have started a fundraiser to put some money towards the hand, and have set themselves the challenge of playing five consecutive rounds of golf at La Moye on Monday 26 June 2023. It's expected to take around 15 hours.
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