Barry Cardno

CatWalk talks to SCI Achiever Barry Cardno.......

CW - What has caused you to be in a chair and when did it happen?

BC - On 8th May 1995 I had a topdressing plane crash near Taupo.  In the accident I sustained breaks in my lower back (T12-L1)  and neck (odontoid-C2).  I also sustained a moderately serious closed head injury.  Doctors put me in a drug induced coma for two weeks.  Surprisingly the spinal cord damage was not picked up until 27 hours after admission to the hospital.  Doctors then surgically inserted plates to stabilise my lower back, and medically immobilised me for a month with skull tongs to prevent damage being done in my neck.  I was 21 years old.

CW - Are you a paraplegic or tetraplegic?

BC - I am a paraplegic from the back break.  Amazingly there was no lasting damage done to the neck - not initially or during the two hourly rotations I was given by the nurses for more than a day.

CW - Tell us about any surgery that you have had since your accident.

BC - See above.

CW - Tell us about your fitness regime.                                 

BC - I have a handcycle that I ride 3-5 times a week.  Typically I go for 30-60 minute rides, usually around lunchtime.  This is year round.  In the winter months I ski 10-12 days in my monoski.     

CW - Tell us about your support network, especially family, friends, medical.

BC - I live by myself in my own three bedroom/two bathroom home.  Winter months I have flatmates.  We co-exist.  My parents live in a small coastal town three hours drive away.  I have an older brother and younger sister who live in Dunedin.  The only times I see my GP are to get my three monthly ACC Warrants-of-Unfitness!

CW - Are you currently employed, or how do you spend your days?

BC - For the past few years I have been researching information on plane crashes involving other young employed pilots who, like me crashed and copped the blame.  This culminated in a book I have written called 'Let Fly!'.  I also regularly provide articles to a national aviation monthly, and occasionally to regional weeklies.  I am in the process of setting up a charitable flying for the disabled venture called Kiwis Can Fly.

CW - Tell us about any specific modifications to your home or place of work, especially those beneficial to others in chairs.

BC - To fly aeroplanes, I use a bolt-on attachment to operate the foot actuated rudder pedals.  It is similar to hand controls for the disabled on cars.  For steering on the ground, I move the bar to the left, which pushes the left pedal away, and turns the nose wheel to the left.  Likewise for the right.  In the air, the bar controls the rudder pedals which 'yaws' the plane to the left and right.

CW -  What are your goals for 2009 and the future?

BC - It is my hope to take my Kiwis Can Fly venture to towns around NZ over the summer months.  The purpose of Kiwis Can Fly is to share the freedom, joy and accomplishment of flying with as many disabled and disadvantaged people as possible; and inspire them to not give up on their dreams.

CW -  What is the one piece of equipment that you just couldn't do without?

BC -  The bolt-on T-bar that I use to operate the rudder pedals in planes.

CW -  What has been one of your most satisfying achievements since being in a chair?

BC -  Regaining my full unrestricted pilot licence to fly Cessnas (this was in 2007).  My pursuit of regaining my wings was stonewalled by Civil Aviation bureacracy for more than ten years.

CW - Who inspires you and why?

BC - Firstly helicopter and deer industry pioneer, Sir Tim Wallis.  Also the late Professor Alan Clarke.  Both of these men fought to regain their pilot licences after breaking their backs (Sir Tim Wallis in 1968; Professor Clarke in 1991).  In 1996 when Professor Clarke was the Clinical Director of the Burwood Spinal Unit, he took me flying in his Cessna to showme how I too could fly again.  Sir Tim Wallis came to see me in Burwood and we keep in touch.

Other men who have inspired me are a group of World War II airmen who were seriously burned in wartime crashes.  Their surgeon Dunedin born Sir Archibald McIndoe, affectionately referred to these men as his 'human guinea pigs', and these patients started the 'Guinea Pig Club'.  Entry was restricted to allied airmen who had been treated by Sir Archie.  By the end of the war, membership to this painfully exclusive club rose to 649.  Despite gruesome disfigurement and disability, most of these men reintegrated to mainstream life, overcoming adversities far greater than mine, and went on to live full and active lives.  The Guinea Pig brotherhood is still strong and many continue to meet regularly.

Curiously, from watching a BBC documentary in 2006, I was to learn that my crash was on the 50th annivesary of VE Day (the end of World War II in Europe), I went to the same high school as Sir Archie, and grew up in the same town.

In 2006 thinking back to ten years earlier when I was in the Burwood Hospital, on my first outing with a nurse I asked to go to a second-hand bookstore.  There I had picked up a autobiography by one of Sir Archie's Guinea Pigs.

Since March 2006, I have been to Britain three times to meet surviving members of the Guinea Pig Club.  I am immensely proud of my connection with this club.

CW - When a cure for SCI is found, what will be the first thing you will will do?

BC - Seriously I haven't begun to fantasize about that.  I keep occupied doing what I can while I can.  For any of us, we don't know what's around the corner in our lives - good or bad.  If, or rather when a cure is found, that will be a bonus.

CW - Is there anything else that may be of interest to our readers?

BC - My book 'Let Fly!'  I openly acknowledge that I had a naive faith in my flying ability; immense pressure I felt under to fly hard and fast straight away; the mistake I made that resulted in my plane crash - which was to be one of five crashes in the final two years of the two plane company I was working for (three of whom were trainees); and the apparent refusal of the accident investigators to look beyond the immediate cause of crashes.  Like most findings they cited pilot error - it was the pilots fault.

In Let Fly!, there is an important message about daring to follow your dreams, and if anyone feels up against extreme odds (vocationally or socially), to not be foolishly naive like I was.  Say NO.  Each of us only have one life......live it wisely!