My story

I was young, I loved motorcycles, speed, the wind in my face. I was only 17 when everything changed. One moment of carelessness — I lost control and veered off the road. A crash, rolling over, silence. I’m lying on the ground, trying to get up — I can’t. Just a cold sensation down my spine. I wanted to call for help, but my voice was gone.

A passerby found me, they put me in a station wagon and drove me to the emergency room. At that point, I still didn’t know — a spinal cord injury at the C4–C5 level. From that moment on, life took a completely new direction.

It was 1993 — sanctions, August, 40 degrees Celsius, hospitals without air conditioning, without basic supplies. I was in the orthopedics ward, among the wounded from Bosnia. No bandages, no syringes. Pressure sores due to poor care, infections, high fevers, one surgery, then another. At some point, you stop counting what you’re going through — you just keep going.

A year later, I finished rehabilitation in Sokobanjska. I came back home. The first thing I saw — stairs. Neighbors carried me up in their arms. The bathroom door was too narrow, I washed my face in a basin until I could find someone to widen the frame. You reorganize your whole house so you can move through it in a wheelchair. You get a bed with an anti-decubitus mattress. Therapists start coming. New people enter your life. A new day, new circumstances. A new me.

Everything changes. But I choose to move forward.