‘Painting brought me out of the dark’
“IT all happened in a split second and then you’re paralysed for life.”
Describing the moment she was hit by a freak wave whilst teaching abroad, Rachel Smith-Ruffle can barely remember the accident that almost killed her.
The mum-of-one from Brooklands had been living and working on Reunion Island, in the Indian Ocean, when she decided to go for a swim 21 years ago.
Whilst swimming in the sea with a friend, Rachel was hit by a wave, causing her to bang her head on the sandbank and break her neck.
She was rushed to hospital, where doctors initially feared she may die.
Rachel was eventually flown 27 hours back to the UK via air ambulance and transferred to a specialist spinal hospital in the south of England.
She remained in hospital for nearly a year before coming round to be told she had been paralysed from the neck down and would never walk again.
Now 44, Rachel has a 10-year-old daughter and a husband, has gained a teaching degree and qualified as an interpreter.
But in January last year, she was dealt another blow when she developed a pressure sore. Her diagnosis meant that Rachel would no longer be able to use her wheelchair, leaving her bedbound for 18 torturous months.
“My mental health just went down really quickly; I was really depressed,” Rachel said. “It was a really hard time.”
Struggling to see his wife’s mental health deteriorate, one day, Rachel’s husband came home with a set of paints and a paintbrush. He told Rachel he couldn’t bare to see her miserable and felt that having something to focus on may change her outlook.
“My disability means I have no feeling or movement in my fingers, so to paint I have to hold the paintbrush with two hands,” Rachel said.
“I managed to work out how to balance the paintbrush with one hand and steady it with the other. When I started out I was absolutely rubbish and then bit by bit I started to get better.
“A few weeks later, friends and family were coming round and commenting on my work – saying they couldn’t believe how good I was.”
Rachel came up with the name The Wonky Artist and sells her paintings online. Now she has more than 7,000 Facebook followers and nearly 2,000 followers on Instagram.