Chris running to support others battling with PTSD
A POLICE officer will be running the Robin Hood Half Marathon less than a year after he was injured in a serious collision at work.
Chris Windsor-beck, 38, from Newark, was hurt whilst working for Lincolnshire Police when a lorry crashed into his police car whilst he attended a breakdown on the A1 on November 25, 2020.
The dad suffered three fractures to his spine, three broken ribs, a broken left thumb and severe concussion and memory loss as a result.
The lorry driver was later jailed for two years after pleading guilty to two counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving and being over the specified limit for cannabis.
Chris was diagnosed with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after the incident, which led him to want to run for charity PTSD UK in the marathon.
The police officer said that he wanted to challenge himself with the race and achieve another goal in his recovery by taking part in the race.
He said: “The preparation is going alright, with my injuries I’ve been off work for a long time, but in terms of my physical injuries I recovered really well from them.
“I wanted to get my fitness levels back up but also challenge myself, which is why I decided to run the half marathon and raise some money in process.
“I haven’t done much running since, I’m quite lucky that I seem to have that natural ability to run that hasn’t gone. I’ve done two ten-mile runs - I was hoping to get a up to the 13 before the race but I don’t want to push myself to much.
“I’m not planning for any personal best times, I just want to finish the race - I think I will have done well just by doing that.
“That will be a nice achievement and to have my family there will make it even better.”
Chris said that there needed to be
more information available to people affected by PTSD.
And that he was only able to take part in this year’s race because he understood his condition more.
He said: “It was scary not knowing, when you can find out what you’re going through you’re in a better position to deal with it.
“My anxiety was so high that it was physically affecting my energy levels, the flashbacks and issues with sleep - I was stuck in the fight or flight mode, I had frozen.
“The therapy that I had has helped me to process that traumatic event. The concerns I had when I was at my worst were that I would never get over it and would live my life being anxious, not being able to do anything.
“I really wanted to get better by understanding what I was actually going through more, that confidence is the reason I can take part in events like the marathon, the social anxiety itself would have been very scary in a big group before.
“I just wanted to keep pushing myself and giving myself challenges, if I can do a half marathon it shows me that I am recovering.
“A lot of people don’t really understand PTSD and PTSD UK’S main aim is to give people that knowledge, I think people don’t usually know it is treatable either.”
Chris has set up a fundraising page with a target of £800, but also wants to share information with anyone interested at the race.
He added: “There’s not many PTSD charities about to my knowledge, there needs to more information out there about it out there.
“It’s the same with a lot of people in the emergency services, a lot of them see traumatic things on a regular basis and we need to be careful about that it doesn’t creep up on them. If you know about PTSD you can nip it in the bud before it becomes a big problem. If people ask me questions while I’m going around I’ll go out of my way to give them some answers because people knowing more is very important to me.”
If you know about PTSD you can nip it in the bud before it becomes a big problem.
Chris Windsorbeck