Hurtling along on a horse at 30mph and being buffeted and bumped by rivals swirling 52in long mallets is not a place for the frail or faint-hearted, but Fran Townend relishes the heat of battle.
She charges clear of the thrashing crowd and gallops to score another goal to underline her selection to the England women’s polo squad.
But none of this should ever have been possible after Fran was left for dead in a devastating road accident.
The final-year medic, who was about to become an Army doctor, was driving home along the M4 to Swindon from a training evening at an Army Reserves Centre in Bristol when disaster struck in October 2013.
A van in front of her crashed and she stopped her car on the hard shoulder to assist.
“I went into doctor mode, checking his airways, breathing and circulation while dialling 999,” she says.
“I was kneeling down taking his pulse when I heard a crash and thought ‘some idiot’s hit my car’. I looked over my shoulder and saw the headlights of a lorry coming at me.
“My immediate thoughts were, ‘I haven’t got time to move and I don’t have time to move the guy I’m helping. I’m going to be hit’.
Fran, who was airlifted to hospital, remembers nothing of the impact but the collision was catastrophic, breaking all her ribs, puncturing both lungs, rupturing her aorta, right kidney and liver, as well as breaking her back in two places and her pelvis in three.
She suffered a head injury that forced doctors to drill a hole in her skull to relieve pressure caused by swelling. They also considered amputating both legs below the knee.
Her family was told to prepare for the worst.
“A police officer turned up at my mum’s house in the middle of the night to inform her I’d been involved in a catastrophic accident and they were not sure if I would survive,” she says.
“It upsets me so much. Imagine being a parent and having to go through that. While my mum and sister were travelling in the police car, every time the police radio crackled my mum would turn to my sister and say ‘that’s it, we’re too late’. It was devastating emotionally for them.”
Thanks to the efforts of the doctors, Fran survived – as did the van driver she stopped to help – but her road to recovery would be slow.
The 35-year-old, who lives in London, was in hospital for five months and her application to become an Army doctor stayed on file. After six weeks of NHS rehabilitation, she got a place at Headley Court, the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre in Surrey, and became a member of Blesma, which works to provide practical, emotional and financial support to those who have served in the British Armed Forces and suffered life changing injury. There, she forged an incredible recovery.
“Progress was slow but there were small landmarks, like being able to wiggle the toes in my left foot and being able to lift my foot.
“Then pretty much a year to the day after I was injured, I went from a wheelchair to crutches, then to one crutch and walking sticks – that took a lot of time and I still need a single stick now.”
A keen sportswoman and horse rider before, Fran tried wheelchair basketball, rugby and tennis before joining a polo recovery programme.
“I loved it and it was great to be back on a horse again,” she says. “I joined the combined services polo club at Tidworth and got stronger and better.
“My target was to play in an able-bodied team but it was hard because some injuries have not healed.
“I can’t feel anything on the outside of my right leg and nothing at all below the knee. I’ve got one muscle that works below the knee and can just about raise my foot with it.
"I’ve got weaknesses in both legs, in my hamstrings and adductor muscles and there’s a lot of nerve damage. I can’t run, jump or wear high heels and I’m also weak around the pelvis.”
But Fran’s dedication and iron will to improve have seen her rise to play in able-bodied teams, with and against men, and be selected for the England women’s polo team.
“When I turned up at the European Championships on crutches, people were saying, ‘What are England thinking?’ But we won silver and qualified for the first ever ladies’ World Championships in Argentina earlier this year, where we got bronze,” laughs Fran, who also passed all her medical exams and has gone on to become an NHS A&E doctor.
Fran, who was funded by Blesma, the limbless veterans charity, to pursue her polo dream, says: “It was a miracle I survived. I was told I would never walk again but I just thought that wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t prepared to accept that.
“I hope what I’ve achieved with Blesma’s help will help others believe that they can have dreams and aspirations and be independent.”
- For further details of Blesma’s work, visit blesma.org
