Bay of Plenty Times
  • Bay of Plenty Times home
  • Latest news
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
  • Sport
  • Video
  • Death notices
  • Classifieds

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • On The Up
  • Business
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Residential property listings
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
  • Sport

Locations

  • Coromandel & Hauraki
  • Katikati
  • Tauranga
  • Mount Maunganui
  • Pāpāmoa
  • Te Puke
  • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua

Media

  • Video
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-Editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

Weather

  • Thames
  • Tauranga
  • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Bay of Plenty Times

Jim Savage: Living with polio

Zoe Hunter
By Zoe Hunter
Bay of Plenty Times·
23 Oct, 2018 08:17 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Madeleine and Jim Savage. Photo/George Novak

Madeleine and Jim Savage. Photo/George Novak

Tauranga's Jim Savage could have been an All Black.

He loved his sports, and he was good at them.

But a chipped tooth during a football match is what may have changed his life forever.

It was early on a Sunday morning in 1958. A 22-year-old Jim had gone deer hunting in his hometown of Kawerau.

When he went to bed, everything had seemed normal apart from an aching jaw from breaking his tooth during a football match the day before and a sore leg.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

But when he woke up at 5.30am to check the deer, he couldn't walk.

"I went to get up and I had no leg, it was gone. It wouldn't work."

The car was an hour away, but it took Jim about five hours to crawl back to it.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"I used a rifle as a crutch," he said. "I had to come down a hill, across a wire rope, back up the other side of the valley to the car, got home and the doctor couldn't see me until Monday."

But he was determined to get back to the car. "I thought, 'I'm like I am, let's get back to the car.' What could you do?"

So Jim went to bed, but the next morning he fell out of the top bunk. The feeling in his other leg had gone too.

Jim was soon diagnosed with poliomyelitis, or polio - a crippling and potentially deadly infectious disease which can affect a person's brain and spinal cord, causing paralysis.

He didn't know what polio was, but he believes he contracted the virus when he broke his tooth during the football match.

The now 82-year-old, who has called Tauranga home since 2010, said he was bedridden for "a long time" and was taught to try and use his legs again.

"I couldn't get them to move. But me being me I got down on my hands and knees and crawled to the bath, crawled to the toilet, crawled all over the place," he said.

"That's me. Get up and go. Don't chuck in... I was determined not to let it get me down. If you let something like that get you down you lose contact with everyone."

Jim was working in the office at a timber yard in Kawerau when he met his wife Madeleine, whom he married in 1963.

"We became good friends and it evolved from there," Madeleine said. "He was always a lot of fun to be around, always happy and cheerful and positive."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The pair raised three children together, two girls and a boy.

His son Danny said his father was a very fit man before polio. "They reckoned he could have possibly made an All Black, he was a very good rugby player," he said.

But Danny said his father had achieved more being disabled than he had when he was able-bodied.

In 1991, Jim went to South America where he rowed in a catamaran for disabled people, which had two wheelchairs on either side and was hand propelled.

They rowed down Lake Titicaca in Peru, where he and Danny visited a hospital of about 400 people - most of them suffering from polio, including children younger than 14.

Danny said people were "kicked out" of hospital once they turned 14 and on to the streets.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

"We came across people, especially in Cusco, a guy just dragging himself along with two blocks of timber because he had polio," he said.

At that time, things like wheelchairs and crutches were a luxury, Danny said. So, when the pair returned to New Zealand, the pair raised enough funds to fill a 12m-tall container of them and shipped them back to Peru.

"We are very lucky in New Zealand not to be faced with that scenario," Danny said. "Now there is hardly a polio case around in New Zealand."


What is polio?
- Polio is a highly contagious disease that attacks the nervous system
- Children under 5 are most likely to contract the virus
- According to the World Health Organization, 1 in 200 polio infections result in permanent paralysis
- The polio vaccine was developed in 1953 and made available in 1957
Source: www.healthline.com

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Bay of Plenty Times

Bay of Plenty Times

'Do it now, run him over'. Teen who ran over mother's partner twice can finally be named

07 Jul 07:00 AM
Bay of Plenty Times

Hunter who feeds the hungry named Volunteer of the Year

07 Jul 06:56 AM
Bay of Plenty Times

Downhill mountain bikers impress on world stage

07 Jul 06:38 AM

From early mornings to easy living

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Bay of Plenty Times

'Do it now, run him over'. Teen who ran over mother's partner twice can finally be named

'Do it now, run him over'. Teen who ran over mother's partner twice can finally be named

07 Jul 07:00 AM

Rereamanu Ronaki-Wihapi's mother was drunk, and initially egged him on.

Hunter who feeds the hungry named Volunteer of the Year

Hunter who feeds the hungry named Volunteer of the Year

07 Jul 06:56 AM
Downhill mountain bikers impress on world stage

Downhill mountain bikers impress on world stage

07 Jul 06:38 AM
Māori fighter stars in Netflix boxing event

Māori fighter stars in Netflix boxing event

07 Jul 01:24 AM
Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • Bay of Plenty Times e-edition
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Subscribe to the Bay of Plenty Times
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP