Francesca, 28, opens up about accident that left her in wheelchair
AWOMAN left paralysed from the waist down after falling on a night out has told how she rejected the chance to appear on Channel 4 reality show The Undateables THREE times because she didn’t want to let her disability define the person she is.
Francesca Antoniazzi opened up about the effect her tragic accident has had and her amazing recovery in the hope her story can show others that having a disability should not get in the way of people living life to its fullest.
The 28-year-old, from Llanfairpwll, was on a girls’ night out in May 2016 when she fell from a height, breaking her back and fracturing her skull.
The accident, of which she remembers little, caused a bleed on the brain which caused her to lose her sense of smell.
Doctors at Stoke University Hospital managed to fuse Francesca’s back together and she was later transferred to Oswestry where she remained for three months undergoing physiotherapy and learning how to sit up, dress herself and move from her wheelchair to another chair or bed.
She said: “I had to re-learn look after myself.
“I knew when I woke up that I was paralysed and I was devastated, but at the same time I felt like I had no other choice but to accept it.”
Shortly released
after from basically how to she was hospital, Francesca says she was approached on three separate occasions by the production team for Channel 4’s ‘The Undateables’ asking if she wanted to appear on the show.
The series follows singletons with various mental and physical conditions such as Tourettes, learning disabilities and Down syndrome and sets them up with other likeminded individuals in the hope they will find love.
Francesca said: “This was about two years ago now.
“They must have found out I had recently been in an accident and seen that I was in a wheelchair and got in touch with me on Facebook.
“I didn’t realise that being in a wheelchair automatically meant you were undateable but there we are.
“Three times I had different people trying to get me on the programme, I had to tell them to get lost in the end!
“I’ve never watched it but it feels like they’re saying that I’m absolutely undateable because I’m in a wheelchair, and I don’t want to define myself like that, so I won’t do it.
“It makes me feel a bit rubbish about myself.”
Before the accident, the finance officer spent most of her free time going to the gym and playing for a local netball team and she now refuses to let her disability get in the way of her love of sports and frequently competes in para-powerlifting competitions.
She said: “I have always been into sport.
“I used to go to the gym five days a week and be in a netball team so I knew I wanted to get straight back into the gym.
“Now I train in the gym three to four times a week and I have wheelchair basketball training twice a week.
“I play for Anglesey Hawks, North Wales Knights, and North Wales Knight-mares.
“I also do para-powerlifting which is bench press and I enter competitions and compete in British championships and Welsh weightlifting competitions.
“I was determined that not everything had to be different about my life just because I was in a wheelchair.”
A Channel 4 spokesperson said: “When looking for contributors for this much-commended show the production team approach a wide number of individuals, experts and organisations.
“It was during this process that Francesca passed on her details to a member of the casting team.
“Nobody who is approached is assumed to be single or deemed to be “undateable” rather we hope they will help us spread the word in reaching people who may like to take part.
“Those who have previously appeared on The Undateables have spoken overwhelmingly in support of it and have found it a really positive experience.”