Brothers In Bikes

Left paralysed by a horrific accident, former soldier Jonathan Bell had to rebuild his life. Now, through cycling, he has reconnected with old comrades, confronted shared demons and rebuilt his fitness too.

- David Bradford

As a super-fit young infantry soldier in the Green Howards regiment, Jonathan Bell thought nothing of running 15 miles over rough terrain in full kit with weapon and ammunition. But one night on Salisbury Plain in 1993, while training for deployment in Bosnia, his life as a soldier was obliterated.

“We were a group of 16 on foot on a night navigation, and I was at the back,” Bell recalls. “Without warning, a vehicle hit us at speed from behind.”

Bell was hit first and took the heaviest impact before the car ploughed through the whole group, injuring all 16 soldiers. He was left paralysed from the armpits down, his lower left leg so badly mangled that his foot had to be amputated. His physical mobility and a core part of his identity were gone forever.

“In that moment, I stopped being in the battalion, and afterwards, while the others went off on deployments, I was left lying in a hospital bed.”

The driver of the car was banned for 18 months for being twice over the drink drive limit, uninsured and having only a provisional licence.

Recovery was a long, gruelling process for Bell; he had to adapt to his new life as a paraplegic, a civilian and someone for whom keeping fit could no longer be taken for granted.

“In a split second, I went from being an extremely fit soldier to being what seemed at the time to be the opposite. I had to get my head round being a wheelchair user and all the connotations related to that. Thankfully I had a good family around me.”