Bay of Plenty gym owner Casey Brady is “determined” to walk again.
The 31-year-old was left paralysed from her lower chest down after a motocross accident in Taupō in June 2017.
Due to a spinal cord injury, specialists told Brady she would never walk again.
She wants to prove them wrong.
“I’m never going to accept it, as such.”
Since the accident, Brady has done a lot of “intensive” rehabilitation, bought a gym, retrained as a personal trainer, travelled to the US for stem cell treatment.
If that was not enough motivation to keep trying to beat the odds, Brady is expecting her first child via a surrogate next month and aims to give her daughter “every opportunity”.
“As s*** as my accident was, I’ve found my purpose. And I love it.”
Speaking to the Bay of Plenty Times from her business NextStep New Zealand in Mount Maunganui, Brady said she started motocross riding when she was 12 after her parents bought a farm in Pyes Pa.
Her father built a motocross track at home and she and her three sisters enjoyed riding.
On the day of the accident, Brady said she went over a jump, flew over the handlebars, landed on her head, and knocked herself out.
“When I came around, I felt my tummy and it was a really weird feeling. I just knew it was serious. I didn’t move – I’d never felt like that before.”
She remembered the paramedic telling her a helicopter was on the way.
“I don’t really remember much after that.”
Brady was airlifted to Middlemore Hospital where she had surgery for her spinal cord injury.
“I broke my back at T6 [vertebrae].”
After a week in hospital, she spent three months in a spinal ward in Auckland doing rehabilitation and learning how to sit up, move, use a wheelchair and drive again.
After being discharged, Brady – who lives with her husband Mitch in Te Puke – stayed with family while their home was renovated to make it more accessible and wheelchair-friendly for her.
She said they needed ramps, “roll-in” showers and bigger bathrooms. They also made a lower bench and sink in the scullery that Brady could roll under.
“I was determined to walk again … I do heaps of intensive rehab.”
This included locomotor training – walking in a harness on a treadmill – acupuncture, electrical stimulation, using a hyperbaric chamber and swimming.
“You name it, I try it.”
Pre-accident, Brady was a preschool teacher. Afterwards, she and a business partner bought the NextStep New Zealand franchise and she did a personal training course.
“I needed a purpose.”
NextStep has gyms in Mount Maunganui and Whakatāne. It is accessible to everyone and helps people with neurological rehabilitation such as those who have had strokes, Parkinson’s disease and spinal cord injuries, she said.
She said being treated as a “normal person” by family and friends helped her stay positive since the accident.
“I think having an amazing trainer and a purpose … I’ve made my life around my goal. My rehab is part of my work.
“That’s made a massive difference. If I had to go back to teaching, I don’t know how I’d fit in my rehab and that would upset me.”
She said the hardest part about using a wheelchair was feeling angry: “I just want to stand up and reach something or help someone.
“[But] being miserable … doesn’t get you anywhere.”
“I definitely get sad and over it … I have heaps of pain.”
She described experiencing nerve pain as “like I’m in a vice in a fire with pins and needles”.
Brady said she did not have nerve pain initially after her accident so she believed it was a good sign that feeling was returning.
Brady went to Florida in the US for stem cell treatment last month.
She explained it involved umbilical stem cells being administered intravenously into her spinal cord where her injury was and her lower back.
Brady said stem cell treatment was not a cure but would go hand-in-hand with intensive rehabilitation.
“You’re teaching your body to learn to walk again or to find those signals so hopefully that will just clear more of the pathway.
“I’d come home and do heaps of rehab and then my body would use those stem cells to create a new pattern … rather than my stem cells that I had in that area which were damaged.”
Brady said she expected it would take three months to notice a difference.
After one month: “I think something’s happening”.
Brady said her injury meant she was “high risk” to carry a baby. She also had a blood condition that would impact the baby getting iron.
She and Mitch decided to explore surrogacy as an option.
Brady said they used a fertility clinic and found their surrogate via social media.
“I met the most amazing human that is carrying my baby.”
Brady said her daughter was due at the end of August.
Brady said she and Mitch had been together since she was 18. They would have started trying for a baby soon after the time she had her accident had she not been injured.
“I have nieces and nephews … I love being around them so I can’t wait.”
Brady said she wants to be able to walk for her baby so she could enjoy time with her and “give her every opportunity”.
“Kick a ball, play at a playground with her, take her to the beach.”
Brady said beaches and playgrounds were, in her experience, generally very inaccessible and she hated the idea of not being able to take her daughter “to do normal things other kids get to do with their mums”.
Megan Wilson is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist since 2021.
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