In Top Form
David Wiseman and Nathan Jones, former British servicemen, were severely injured while serving their country. They made remarkable recoveries and even participated in the Invictus Games. Now, they have focused their energy on their new organisation called Peak State which places a spotlight on mental health
chest. The round hit just below my clavicle, travelled down the length of my torso, nicking my axial artery on the way and smashing through my brachial plexus and shredded through my lung. It shattered my ribs and came to rest in my right lung where it still sits today.”
Getting shot was the start of an ordeal and one where Wiseman had to use every ounce of his training and sheer will to survive. “My chest was filling with blood and [my team] kept me alive for long enough until an American helicopter landed to take me away. I stopped breathing three times on the ground. I get onto the back of the chopper and as they strap me down, I stopped breathing again. That’s when [the paramedic] takes a blade and starts cutting into my chest without any anaesthetic and [inserted a tube]. All that blood seeped out onto the floor of the helicopter, and I could breathe again. I spent a week in intensive care in Birmingham. I left the Army in 2013 after several years in and out of the fantastic Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre at Headley Court.”
It’s at that defence medical rehabilitation centre where Wiseman met with fellow British serviceman Nathan Jones. It would be the start of a friendship that would lead to sports – the Invictus Games – and the founding of an organisation called Peak State that deals with mental health. Jones, a pilot, was also on duty flying to Afghanistan when he suffered a horrific injury. “I was flying a Voyager aircraft, an Airbus A330, from the RAF Brize Norton station to Helmand Province in Afghanistan. We were in cruise mode, flying at 33,000 feet when I decided to exit the cockpit and take a break. While I was having a cup of tea, the next thing I knew was that I was pinned to the roof. We were plummeting into the sea. I had to crawl on the roof, pull myself down to my seat, and then activate a button that gave me priority on my controls [to take over the aircraft]. What had happened is that the captain – I was a co-pilot at the time – was taking photos of the stars with an SLR camera and got his camera jammed at the controls. So, he moved his seat forward and it knocked the autopilot out and jammed the stick all the way forward. He was there thinking the autopilot was stuck, but it was the camera jamming the controls instead. From hitting the roof, I split the back of my head open and broke my back. From 2014, I was full-time in the defence medical rehab centre recovering from both physical and mental injuries,” explains Jones.
The experiences of being injured and going through extensive rehabilitation programmes together led Wiseman and Jones to the opportunity of a lifetime. A few years after their respective accidents, and after spending a considerable