Sam Bailey

“It's amazing how a split second can change your life.”

Those are the first words in my book Head Over Heels, published by ABC Books. I was describing the events leading up to a car accident that left me a quadriplegic. But those words now have much deeper meaning for me because that day's event not only left me in a wheelchair with limited use of my arms and hands, no feeling from the chest down, bowel and bladder problems and an inability to cope with heat and cold. It also completely changed my life.

“Obviously…” you'd respond! But I don't just mean I could no longer do everything I used to do before…like play football, ride horses, go surfing, walk. I mean it has led me down a career path I would never have imagined, even in my wildest dreams.

I thought initially that it would mean I couldn't fulfil my life's dream of becoming a farmer. But about that I was wrong. I came home to the family farm and over the next few years proved I could still do things on the land. A four-wheel motorbike became my legs around the farm. I developed a hoist to get me in and out of the farm machinery, like the tractor, the harvester, the front-end loader and dozer. I even learnt how to fly an ultralight aircraft.

In 1999 I married Jenny Black, a rural reporter with ABC Radio who I met when she came to interview me a couple of years earlier. So I had fulfilled my dream. I'd become a farmer with ‘my little mate' by my side. But then I found myself heading down a completely different path. My story appeared on ABC Television's Australian Story and I started getting phone calls about public speaking.

Initially it was just locally, to schools or Rotary clubs, fundraisers or charity events. But over time it has developed to the point where I now spend eighty per cent of my time on the road, speaking at events and functions across the country. With time, it inspired interest in a book and in 2004 Jenny and I received a book contract with ABC Books. Head Over Heels was published in April last year and is now a bestseller, with more than 30,000 copies sold.