IT was a "daft accident" which nearly cost Jason Swift his life.
The 28-year-old was heading home on his motorbike after a visit to Matlock with his brother, Jamie, when his life changed forever.
As he went around a bend his Honda CVR 600 bike hit something in the road, throwing him off and into the path of a passing car.
After getting crushed beneath the car's back wheels, Jason was left unconscious and fighting for his life – all just yards from his home.
Jason, 28, of Oakdale Road, South Normanton, said: "I can't remember the accident. The first thing I can remember is waking up in hospital months later.
"It was just a daft accident. I didn't know just how close I was to death.
"When people tell me, it just shows just how much everyone did for me."
Jason came off his bike in Storth Lane, South Normanton, at around 4pm on May 28 last year. His fiancée, Charlotte Hobster, 27, who grew up in Nuthall, got a phone call at around 4.30pm saying he had had an accident and it was "really bad".
She arrived to find more than 100 people crowded around Jason, who had stopped breathing and was being treated by air ambulance medics.
Charlotte said: "I remember doctors trying to clear people away because there was such a massive crowd. As I got there the air ambulance staff were dealing with him and they had cut all his leathers off.
"An off-duty nurse had seen him come off and started CPR.
"He had monitors all over him and was totally unconscious, he had stopped breathing. They were breathing for him in the air ambulance."
Jason was taken to the Queen's Medical Centre by helicopter and straight to theatre, where he underwent an eight-hour operation to save his life.
He had punctured both of his lungs, had bleeding to the front of his brain, various fractures to his neck and a broken right shoulder blade.
The impact of the accident had also caused nerve damage to his right arm and torn the main artery from his heart to that arm, meaning he was bleeding internally.
He needed to be given five units of blood to replace that lost due to the bleeding.
Charlotte said: "On the GCS Scale – which measures consciousness – Jason was a three. Fifteen is normal, so he was barely there.
"He was critical for days and he'd suffered life-threatening injuries to his chest and brain. His chest was horrendous – he was on a ventilator for a long time and kept having chest infections.
"He totally wasted away. He was normally about 15-and-a-half stone, but he dropped to 11st 10lbs in hospital."
During his battle, Jason spent around seven weeks in intensive care at the QMC, before being transferred to the high-dependency unit and the new D9 Major Trauma Centre.
Jason is one of 44 "unexpected" survivors treated at the centre in the last year – people who were extremely close to death.
The trauma centre is due to celebrate its first anniversary on Monday.
Since its launch, it has seen about 60 major trauma cases each month. More than 500 patients have been cared for.
A total of 91 patients were brought into the unit via an air ambulance, while 61 people required stabilisation at a local trauma unit before being transferred to the centre.
Jason's treatment also saw him transferred to Nottingham's City Hospital to the Linden Lodge neurological rehabilitation unit, before being discharged from hospital on October 15 last year – nearly five months after the accident.
He has been left with a four-month gap in his memory, has lost the use of his right arm, and has had to learn to walk again.
He has also been told it could take up to 18 months for his brain to fully heal.
Charlotte said: "He's really, really positive. I think sometimes when we talk about how bad he was he cannot believe it.
"We've been back to see the nurses and doctors and they can't believe the difference in him.
"They were all amazing, so good and really supportive."
Jason, who had worked as a pylon engineer for Balfour Beattie for six years prior to the accident, said: "It's been hard. I've always been an athletic person.
"If I'm honest, I just want to get on with life. I don't want to stop.
"I know there's lots I can't do now but I'm still going to get as good as I can."
He added: "I had to learn to walk again. That was one of the weirdest things ever.
"I woke up and couldn't walk because I'd been laid down for that long, and my brain had forgotten.
"It took about four or five sessions to be able to walk again without someone's hand on me, but I'm totally fine now.
"I'm just hoping I can do something in the offices, helping to train other people to do my job."
Of the Major Trauma Unit's help, Jason said: "They were all brilliant at helping me.
"I also couldn't have done it without the help of Charlotte, and my family and friends."
