Living as a quadraplegic

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33775, 22 February 1975, Page 10

Living as a quadraplegic

By Accident: A Quadraplegic Faces Life. By Christopher Lethbridge. Hodder and Stoughton. 222 pp. N.Z. price $5.20. Some readers may find this book disturbing because of its harrowing description of the physical and mental agony that the victim of a back injury can experience. Mr Lethbridge broke his neck when diving into shallow water in a river near Wanganui on New Year’s Day, 1955. In the light of present-day knowledge the treatment he received in the months immediately afterwards, although done with the best of intentions, is horrifying. Of course, he suffered the side effects of a spine injury that were virtually inevitable 20 years ago — bedsores and urinary infection. He was in plaster from nead to waist for 14 weeks during a hot summer. But not only physical problems are dealt with. Mr Lethbridge also discusses some of the social problems that a quadraplegic (and a paraplegic) can have — such as relations with the opposite sex. Much of his book will be of particular interest to Christchurch people because Mr Lethbridge was moved to Christchurch Hospital in 1959. There he was put under the care of Mr W. L. F. Utley, a surgeon who

had just returned from studying spina! injury units in Britain and America. Because of the expert and enlightened care Mr Lethbridge received in the spinal unit he spent only 18 days in hospital. He remained in Christchurch to help the Rev. David Thorpe with the work of St John’s Church. Soon after leaving hospital Mr Lethbridge married and he provides a good description of the difficulties a quadraplegic faces in adjusting to a new way of life. The difficulties were greater in his case because he lived in Sebastian House, a property in Latimer Square leased by St John’s to accommodate a number of people, among them the just-married couple. Before his accident Mr Lethbridge studied for the Anglican ministry and he completed his B.A. degree while in hospital in Wanganui. He became interested in faith healing and was involved in the teaching tour on Divine healing by Dr Christopher Woodard in New Zealand some years ago. In 1963 he left Latimer Square and St John’s to become lay reader of the Phillipstown vicarage. But in spite of : some success in the work there the ordination committee would not approve his ordination, ostensibly for health reasons. Mr Lethbridge now lives in Levin.