I thought I was going to play until I was 90.. then the nightmare struck
ENGLAND STAR ALEX DANSON ON HER INCREDIBLE BATTLE TO RECOVER FROM THE FREAK HOLIDAY ACCIDENT THAT DEVASTATED HER LIFE
THEY say laughter is therapeutic. But not in Alex Danson’s case.
One of British sport’s most decorated careers was ended by a joke that left the Olympic gold medal list with a traumatic brain injury.
The scenario would almost be funny, but when your headaches are so savage the glare of a 40-watt bulb is too much to bear and your world
shuts down around you, it is a long way from a laughing matter.
It happened on holiday in Kenya. As hockey star Danson threw herself back in hysterics at her boyfriend’s one-liner and hit her head against a brick wall behind her, she had no idea how her life was to change. “I hit a surface that didn’t move and it unfolded into a nightmare I never dreamed possible,” she said. “I was very, very unwell. I’d be literally holding my head in pain every time I tried to move. I couldn’t read, walk or do anything. I was confined to a dark room and couldn’t maintain contact with anybody. “I thought I was one of those players who’d still be going at 90, but the events two years ago changed all that.” After 306 international appearances, her career was all over – brought to an end in the most freakish circumstances.
And an abortive attempt in February to make the Great Britain squad for the
Olympic defence in Tokyo was the final full stop.
“I’d tried to go back, but I kind of knew it wasn’t going to be possible. I didn’t get very far and I didn’t join in any sessions,” she said. “It was my fourth major head injury – and it was a serious one.”
If she needed perspective over the loss of her career, she was handed it the most cruel way last year. Her sister Claire, a talented triathlete, was paralysed in a training accident when her bike was hit by a tractor.
“I can’ t c omp l a i n about headaches, can I?” said Danson.
T h e y remain part of her daily life, but she has now been able to take up a post as an assistant coach ( left) with Wimbledon in the Women’s Hockey Premier League.
Coaching in south-west London has its challenges, given it involves a threehour round trip from her New Forest home ( near where she has also trained youngsters, below). But she has forgiven the joke teller, Alex Bennett, sufficiently to marry him.
She said: “The joke we have is that he proposed at my lowest, I agreed, halfconcussed, and I’ll wake up in a year and think, ‘ Who are you?’.”
Alex DansonBennett, as she is now, is expecting their first child in January and happy to be back in the game she loves.
She added: “This is a great learning curve for me at Wimbledon. I love the hockey environment, I love the people.
“I am loving being back.”
‘I could not read or walk. I was confined to a dark room’