He even doubted his wife, Clare, would stay with him.
"When I woke up out of my coma and could make sense I said to my wife I, 'If you want to go you can go. I'll be devastated, but you can go'.
"And she elected to stay and I thought, Woo-hoo! Yee-ha! Because it's been a journey, coping with my inabilities. Because I forget a lot, I'm unstable," Chapman says.
Jamie lives apart from his family in the Wairarapa Village where he keeps busy by reading and teaching himself guitar.
"I live in the hospital side so they can watch me keep an eye on me.
"When I had my last seizure, I was out for about 15 hours.
"It was probably a bit long, but I don't know, because I don't remember."
Although Jamie's beloved Harley Davidson is now history, today he turns heads cruising around town on his custom trike wheels.
"Spike services it and I've got no worries about servicing."
"Mobility scooters. They make me look older than I am. I wanted this because it looks like a motorcycle."
His wife Clare says his recovery can be a tough journey
"You have no idea what a traumatic brain injury entails," she says.
"Even though they are still that same person, they're not really that same person.
While Jamie will never ride a motorbike again, he still finds ways to push limits on wheels.
"Once I get a bit of speed up, I can pick my feet up and my wife hates it.
"Yeah, because apparently, I'm dangerous!"
