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Inside Health

Bladder, bowels and sex: Learning to live after my mountain accident

Inside Health

BBC

Health & Fitness, Science

4.4575 Ratings

🗓️ 16 January 2024

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 2016, Niall McCann was left with a bruised spinal cord when he crashed his speed glider into the side of a mountain at 50mph.

He shares his journey to recovery and some unexpected life lessons he has had to navigate, from soiling himself in inconvenient places and not being able to control his flatulence, to having to re-learn how to have sex again.

We also hear from a Brecon Mountain Rescue medic on what looked like an “unsurvivable” situation and Niall’s surgeon on fixing his “exploded” spine. Presenter: Smitha Mundasad Producer: Gerry Holt Editor: Holly Squire

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello, I'm Greg Jenna and good news, Your Dead to Me is back for a new series. Here we go. Yes, we'll explore Emperor Nero's notorious reign with Professor Marybeard and Patton Oswald. I would not want my daughter having the remote control, not alone an empire. We'll dissect the decadent life of Philippe Duke-Dor-Leon with Tom Allen. I've often tried to pretend I'm an aristocrat and being very quickly knocked down. And there'll be so much more with comedians like Olga Koch, Mike Mosniak and Ria Lina. I'm excited. You're dead to me, the comedy podcast that takes history seriously. Listen first on BBC Sounds. Are you okay? And recording? Yeah. Okay. I'm going to go. Off I go. I go.

0:38.3

There was a really bizarre moment which has concreted in my mind.

0:53.3

I remember thinking a very specific thought that this is how

0:56.9

I die and that's a shame. That's Nile McCann. What you've just heard is him crashing into a mountain

1:04.8

of 50 miles an hour. This is Inside Health with me, Smythamundasid. The story you're about to listen to is not an easy one to hear.

1:14.5

Nile talks about his devastating accident, which remarkably he survives.

1:18.8

He speaks too in some detail about his surgery and recovery.

1:23.5

We hear how he learns to cope with and sometimes even laugh about the very serious injuries

1:28.7

that have changed his life.

1:30.9

I'm going to embrace the fact that I have bladder incontinence

1:34.5

and bowel incontinence and sexual dysfunction

1:36.2

because I can.

1:37.9

And I really hope that other people feel

1:39.6

that that gives them the permission to embrace it to.

1:42.0

I meet him at his home in Newport, South Wales.

1:49.3

Hi, Smitha. Come on in.

1:51.0

Funny how many shook hands even though.

1:54.5

All right, what are you on? We've got every possible way of baking coffee.

1:57.1

I can't. One, two, three, four different ways of making coffee. Five.

2:01.0

Wow. I'll just have a long two, three, four different ways of making coffee. Five. Wow.

2:01.3

I'll just have a long black.

2:03.1

Please.

...

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