Hawke’s Bay mountain biker who lay paralysed on track for hours wants riders to consider neck braces

Clayton Hairs on the day he was discharged from Hawke's Bay Fallen Soldiers' Memorial Hospital in Hastings to Burwood Hospital in Christchurch.

Laying paralysed and alone on a remote Central Hawke’s Bay track with rain cascading down on him, mountain biker Clayton Hairs thought his time could be up.

He’d made peace with what was to come when his Find My iPhone alarm suddenly went off.

His 15-year-old daughter Phoebe had tracked his location, and noticed he wasn’t moving. The alarm was her way of telling him – help is on the way.

Clayton moved to Havelock North from Australia 18 months ago with his wife, Rochelle, and daughters Phoebe and Amitie, 13.

Rochelle (left) and Clayton Hairs with their daughters Amitie and Phoebe in the Himalayas before the accident.

Originally from South Africa, Clayton had been mountain biking for eight months and had already completed many trails around the region.

About 3pm Saturday, March 8, Clayton headed to Gum Tree Farm Mountain Bike Park in Waipukurau to complete the Busta trail, a track he called “the old man’s course”.

When Clayton left home it was a sunny day, but by the time he arrived there were dark clouds on the horizon and the lack of cars around told him he’d be alone on the course.

He took off anyway, and from there his memory goes blank.

Clayton woke up crashed on the ground, unable to move, with no recollection of how he got there.

He had what is classified as a C4 ASIA A SCI injury – a tetraplegic – with his spinal cord cut and no communication between his brain and his body past his shoulders.

Clayton says the lack of understanding of the cause of the accident is both “a blessing and a curse”.

“It’s a blessing in the fact that I can’t regurgitate a thing in my mind,” Clayton said.

Thanks to his meditation practice, a now-alert Clayton didn’t allow his thoughts to get hysterical.

He realised he was alone, that he was cold, and that he couldn’t get himself up.

But he only had two things on his mind – his family and breathing in and out.

“It got to the point where I realised it was quite serious and I sort of started saying I might be cashing in my chips,” he said.

“There was every chance that this was going to be tickets for the bus, and I made my peace with that reality.”

Neck braces: ‘I don’t see a reason not to wear them’

When he had his accident, Clayton was wearing a “decent” $300 helmet, which he credits with keeping him alive.

But he’s realised other mountain bikers should consider additional safety measures as well – the more protection you can put on, the better.

Dr Euan Speirits is the orthopaedics and sports medicine lead at Queenstown Medical Centre and formerly raced internationally on the international downhill mountain biking circuit.

He is sponsored by personal protective company Leatt, after doing a peer review of their work.

Leatt produces some of the best neck braces in the world, which are used in sports such as mountain biking and motocross.

Speirits said looking at data from human analogue models of the neck brace, it shows it reduces the force that goes through the cervical spine, diverting that force away from the spinal column and into large muscle groups, with the body structure essentially working like a pyramid.

“The hit is to the top of the pyramid, and it gives the pyramid a nice broad base for that energy to defuse through,” he said.

“If the hit to the top of the pyramid is on a very narrow tower, that tower can crack a lot more easily.”

Speirits said the key to stopping injuries like Clayton’s is prevention and he would “absolutely” recommend the wearing of neck braces to casual mountain bikers.

“I don’t see a reason not to wear them.”

‘Thank God, they’ve found me’

Meanwhile, back in Havelock North, Clayton’s daughter Phoebe was trying to get in touch with him to get him to pick up food on his way home.

She had looked up his location using Apple’s Find My app, which shows the location of selected devices. She saw he was still on the trail, so she figured he’d be busy biking.

Back at the trail, Clayton decided to try shouting for Siri, Apple’s digital assistant that can be operated via voice commands, to call Rochelle.

Unfortunately, his spinal injury had caused him to lose all compression in his voice, turning it into a whimper.

But a few hours later, Phoebe looked at her father’s location again. Realising he hadn’t moved in a long time, she knew something was wrong.

On the Find My app, there is a button to push that sounds an alert on the other phone.

Phoebe hit the button and an alarm sounded on Clayton’s phone, letting him know his family was on their way.

“I then knew, thank God, they’ve found me and I could really kind of relax,” he said.

Rochelle found Clayton about an hour later with local volunteer firefighters and the park’s caretaker.

He had a body temperature of 34C, well into hypothermia range, although he couldn’t feel it because of his injury.

Soon, they had Clayton on a stretcher and were walking down the track, slipping in the mud from the rain, reaching the ambulance at 11.30pm.

“It was quite hairy to get all the way down to where the ambulance was, then we had another 45-minute drive into Hastings, so it was a long day,” Clayton said.

Clayton Hairs at Burwood Hospital in Christchurch.

‘Lots of ways to grow’

Clayton will reside in Christchurch’s Burwood Hospital for the next four to six months.

He’s looking on the positive side and believes there are “lots of ways to grow from an artistic point of view”, which he said he wouldn’t have had without his injury.

But one thing he really wants is for other mountain bikers to learn from his mistakes, in particular when it comes to wearing a neck brace.

“But I just think you’re a bloody idiot if you don’t go out with some protective gear,” he said.

There is a Givealittle set up to support Clayton and his family. He is also on the hunt for fellow artists who can help him complete some pieces he is now unable to complete.

Jack Riddell is a multimedia journalist with Hawke’s Bay Today and spent the last 15 years working in radio and media in Auckland, London, Berlin, and Napier. He reports on all stories relevant to residents of the region.