JASON Swift was brought back from the brink of death after a motorcycle accident.
He stopped breathing, suffered a head injury, punctured both lungs, and had torn a major vein to his right arm.
But thanks to the work of the trauma experts at the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham – and those who helped him during more than five months in hospital – Jason is now bouncing back.
Medics claim critically-injured patients from across the East Midlands have been given a better chance of survival as a result of the setting up of the unit a year ago – including 44 people who would otherwise have died.
One of them was Jason, 28, who said: "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."
Surgeon Daren Forward was acting as major trauma consultant when Jason arrived at the QMC following his accident.
He said: "You see people like Jason completely wiped out, dead in the bed, and nearly a year later they are back. It's pretty amazing really.
"People clearly surviving who would have died is a fantastic achievement for everyone in the hospital. It's a huge team effort by the nurses, porters, those in the blood bank, radiographers, and paramedics. There's probably hundreds of people involved in that one person's care."
He added: "The main impact is that critical patients are now coming to the right place first time, and the quality of care is better.
"If people like Jason are on the edge, the centre is making that difference in the first 24 hours between them dying and surviving."
In total, more than 500 patients have been cared for by specialist teams at the trauma centre in the last year.
