‘I nearly died, it was the best thing that happened to me’
It was back in October 2014 that John Wingate had an epiphany – that he would say “yes” to life and leave behind a legacy of his time on this earth. It came as the carpenter, from Ditton, was recovering from a punctured lung, broken ribs and a lacerated liver, following an accident which very nearly killed him.
Firefighters spent 40 minutes freeing him after he became pinned down by a two-tonne wood-cutting machine at his workplace in Laddingford.
The 53-year-old recalled: “I could feel my ribs breaking. I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t scream and I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was going to die.
“I was getting crushed, everything was mangled up in the machine except for my right arm.
“Luckily for me I managed to
Today John Wingate is the tour de force behind one of Kent’s newest music festivals. But just eight years ago the carpenter was lying in a hospital bed, having narrowly escaped being crushed to death in an horrific accident at work. He told Cara Simmonds why it was the best thing that ever happened to him...
find the stop button myself, as the guy that was with me went into a complete panic and didn’t know what to do.”
John said: “I stayed concious throughout the whole thing. I couldn’t communicate because I couldn’t breathe, I had no lung capacity at all.
“I really thought I was going to die – that was it, completely game over – I wouldn’t see my family again.”
“What a horrible way to go.” John was taken by the air ambulance up to King’s College Hospital, where after 48 hours he suffered a cardio respiratory attack and had to be resuscitated.
“That was actually harder to deal with than the accident,” he explains.
“I had no control over it – I even struggled going to sleep afterwards, it was hard psychologically.
“It took three weeks in intensive care and six months at home. I couldn’t walk very far, or do much at all really.
“I still suffer with chronic pain now, between my stomach and ribs. It doesn’t stop me from doing anything and isn’t unbearable, but every now and then can feel it.”
Despite everything he has
been through, John believes that the accident was the best thing to have ever happened to him.
He said: “Some people think I am crazy saying it but it’s true, it was a real life-changing thing.
“In a weird way, it makes you see life differently, and it’s about living - whether it is hard or easy, I just want to live.”
Following the accident, John quit his job and decided to focus full time on his business venture Blue Reef, which he runs with his wife Elizabeth, 49.
The centrepiece of the business is the Blue Reef music festival, set to attract an estimated 3,000 music-lovers to Linton next month.
Last July, 2,000 fans enjoyed a day of live music, acoustic stages and a dance tent at the inaugural event.
This time Elizabeth and John plan on going even better – extending the festival to three days, with 12 extra acts booked.
Liz said: “Last year was the first time we had done anything like that, and we were really overwhelmed at how well it had gone. It was a lovely atmosphere.
“It was going to be a oneoff, but we had such a good response, people loved it.”
John added: “We would like the festival to stay quite small and don’t want it to be much bigger than we are now.
“We want to make it a really good experience for local families and people. It should be better not bigger.”
The festival was born out of what was intended to be a small party to celebrate the anniversary of starting their own business – part-skateboard shop/part-cafe and workshop of the same name, Blue Reef, based at Loddington Farm in Linton.
It was inspired by their love of the seaside and surfing down in Cornwall.
Liz said: “We had spoken about it before and you always put things off to another day, because you think there will be another day.
“But it made us both realise there might not be, so we had a chat and decided to go for it.
“John used to surf, and where his stomach muscles were affected by the accident, it was now too painful to paddle out.
“So he built himself a skateboard to get that adrenalin rush again, and that’s how the passion started.”
John added: “I wanted a longboard, but couldn’t find one to my liking, so I made one myself.
“People saw what I was doing, asked for me to make them one and it just evolved from there.”
John’s skateboards take around 10 hours to make, but the process varies on the complexity of the design – with prices varying from £100 to £300.
The carpenter has now made custom longboards for the likes of British motorcycle racer Scott Redding, Scottish racer John McPhee, Jason Bradbury from The Gadget Show and also Jack Bessant, bass player from 90’s rock band Reef.
He commented: “Since I started making these boards, my life has completely changed – not in the monetary sense, but the quality of life and experiences. “It just evolved over the years, we never planned to have a skate shop, or a festival, but we just didn’t stop ourselves and started saying ‘yes’ to things.
“You get into a frame of mind that it can’t be any worse than what has already happened.”
Liz added: “Through doing this we have met so many amazing, inspirational and creative people.
“It has literally opened the doors to another world.”
After reflecting back on the accident in 2014, John says it’s amazing to realise what they have achieved.
He said: “Because you spend most of the time spinning plates and fighting fires, you forget that you’re moving forward.
“When I was laying in my hospital bed, you start thinking – if I had died, what would anyone have remembered me for?
“It looked like I’d done nothing with my life, because there was nothing there.
“Almost now we are sort of leaving a legacy behind.”