GROOM RECOVERS FROM
CAMPBELL Gibb-Stuart took his bride’s hand, slipped the wedding band on her finger, then leaned in and whispered how much he loved her.
But hearing those words meant more than just a tender moment for his bride Lucy – it was a mark of how far Campbell had come in the four years since they had got engaged.
In a horrific accident just three weeks after proposing, he plunged 25 feet off a wall and suffered a brain injury that left him unable to walk or talk. So for Lucy, to have him stand beside her at the altar saying his vows was a magical milestone she will never forget.
“I couldn’t believe he was there, able to talk and enjoy himself,” she says.
“As he put the ring on my finger, the minister said to him, ‘You have to whisper something to your wife when you do this’. Campbell whispered, ‘I really love you’.”
And that heartfelt sentiment was the icing on the cake Lucy had not dared dream of.
Because Campbell’s head injury had been so severe it had changed his character beyond recognition, making him aggressive and unpredictable with no social filter.
Lucy admits: “I fell apart as I walked down the aisle. I was deliberately trying to look at everyone else, but when I saw him I just collapsed emotionally.
“He bloody meant his vows – and I’ve not seen him be that sincere in a long time.”
As he fell Campbell, 32, hit his head on the ground, smashing the left side of his face and shattering his knee.
Medics told Lucy he could die or be left paralysed.
She added: “The vows ‘In sickness and in health’ really did mean something.
His injuries changed his personality – I’d not seen him so sincere for a long time LUCY GIBB-STUART ON HER HUSBAND’S WEDDING WHISPER
BOND
“Going through so much has made our bond even stronger – there were tears all round.”
Campbell’s survival and recovery owe much to trauma care advances across the UK driven by the kind of innovative research carried out at Queen Mary University’s unique Centre for Trauma Sciences, working alongside world class trauma specialists at The Royal London Hospital.
Astonished Lucy says she can see signs of the old Campbell emerging, something which at one point she had never imagined might happen.
The couple, who tied the knot in April, are sharing their story to support the Transform Trauma appeal which has just been launched by Barts Charity.
Backed by the Sunday Mirror, the appeal aims to raise £1million to help desperately underfunded research into catastrophic trauma injuries that claim 17,000 lives each year and leave 70,000 patients and families struggling to cope.
Glasgow-born property manager Campbell has no memory of his accident. He had been for a few drinks after work with colleagues in June 2013. Witnesses say he scaled a fence near Fenchurch Street station in London, then climbed a wall before falling 25 feet to the ground.
He was rushed unconscious to the Royal London, part of Barts Health NHS Trust.
“I knew it was bad because he was unconscious, but I genuinely thought I was going to take him home that night,” Lucy recalls.
“That same day we were told he was going to either die, be fully paralysed, or have a brain injury and his personality would change.
“I thought they were just warning me of the worst, but it wouldn’t happen. I didn’t want to admit it to myself. I was thinking, ‘He’s going to be fine’. But I worried he might not remember me so I put a picture by his bed of him proposing to me.”
Campbell spent three weeks in a coma before he stabilised. When he awoke, as doctors warned, he was not the person Lucy knew but had become “angry, abusive and aggressive”. For the next three and a half years he was a full-time resident in hospital and rehabilitation units as he learned once again to walk, talk and do basic everyday tasks.
Rather than cancel the wedding, Lucy, 33, a senior audit manager for Reed recruitment,