Author of Golden Handcuffs: The Lowly Life of a High Flyer | Poles Apart | The Day I Died | The Fame Factor
Polly's press & media appearances
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Bonuses: The Fictitious Meritocracy
Do Brits know more than we think?
Self-flagellation and the City
Rediscover your Passion - Go It Alone
Finansmiljøet i London - et Jobbhelvete
Fear and Loathing in the Heart of the city
My Glittering City Career Turned into Golden Handcuffs
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August 2009 | FIRST PERSON It took a car crash to really make me live
I was always an active child, but not someone you’d ever think of as ‘sporty’. Tall and long-limbed, I got called ‘butter fingers’ on the netball court and I would invent all sorts of excuses to get out of games lessons. When I was 18, a few months after passing my driving test, I was driving down a country lane on a damp winter evening. I turned the steering wheel to go round a bend, but the vehicle skidded straight on and hit a tree at 50mph.
I must have lost consciousness because the next thing I knew, someone was screaming for me to get out. I couldn’t breathe – I later found out that the seatbelt had crushed my lungs – but I remember blindly stumbling across the road, gasping, afraid that the engine would burst into flames. “The airbag saved your life, but your leg’s badly broken,” the paramedic told me as he strapped me into the ambulance and administered oxygen. “How do you know?” I asked naively. He didn’t reply. It turned out that the bones had been poking through the flesh. I spent two days in intensive care, drifting in and out of consciousness as I underwent X-rays, operations and blood transfusions. Eventually I was transferred to a ward, and with my mother perched anxiously on the edge of the bed, a doctor explained what had happened. My lower leg had splintered into pieces, the kneecap had fractured and the tendon linking the two had been severed. The surgery had gone well, but there were no guarantees I would ever be able to walk normally again. It took a while for the news to sink in. I had never stopped to think about how I would adapt to living with a disability. All of a sudden, with one tiny tap on the accelerator pedal, I had thrown my healthy, confident self into a world of uncertainty: it was possible that my life was about to change forever. Friends came to visit and I put on a brave face. “I’ll be dancing again before you know it,” I’d joke. Inside, I was petrified. It was a while before the dressing came off and I got to see the wound. The nurse had warned me about what to expect, but that didn’t lessen the shock. Swollen, purple and stitched together like one of Frankenstein’s limbs, my left leg was unrecognisable. There was a blood-covered mass of tissue where my knee had once been, and it looked as though my shin had been carelessly filleted. I had never thought of myself as vain, but the realisation that such grotesqueness was now a part of my body made me want to cry. An ex-boyfriend came to see me and remarked, “Pity; you used to have such nice legs.” I couldn’t help it – I burst into tears. Over time, I gained strength – physically and mentally. I was soon moving about on crutches with my leg in a cast. One day, I was watching TV and news broke that a bomb had gone off in Omagh, killing 29 people and injuring hundreds – one of them a girl about my own age. Her leg had had to be amputated. I felt sick all over again – but this time not for myself. That was the moment when I realised how fortunate I was after all. There were people in far worse situations. Eventually, the plaster cast was removed and my leg began to resemble the limb it had once been – albeit with a huge, raw scar up its length. The physiotherapist gave me exercises to do, but warned me that I’d probably never regain full use of my leg. Whilst in hospital, a friend had given me a book of quotations. One of them stuck in my mind as I worked through my exercises: “Never regret the things you’ve done; only the things you haven’t.” I realised that up until then, I had never fully embraced life, never appreciated what I had. I resolved to change. From then on, I was going to take every opportunity that came my way – and specifically, I was going to prove the physiotherapist wrong. Over the next two years I worked hard on my rehabilitation. Once the crutches were gone and the metalwork removed from my leg, I started walking, then running, then playing sport: football, hockey, tennis, squash, basketball... I was so happy to be mobile, I couldn’t get enough of it. Six years later, I ran a marathon. When I finished, I wrote to the surgeon who had mended my leg and thanked him. It seems like a strange thing to say, but the car accident helped me to lead a better life. I’ve got used to the scars – in fact, I quite like them. They remind me to be thankful every day for what I once would have taken for granted. And never again will I regret the things I’ve done – only the things I haven’t. Polly Courtney's latest book, The Day I Died, is out now, published by HarperCollins.
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Polly's TV & Radio appearances
Breaking Stereotypes of Poles in Britain
From Engineer to Investment Banker to Novelist
Berliner Zeitung Magazin, 2007
I Know the Pressure Matthew was Under
I Sold My Soul to the City - then Wanted it Back
Banker Novel Shows it's not all Success in the City
Taste of High Life in City can Seduce Interns
City Woman who quit City over Sexism admits Lapdancing
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