Damien Horton defied all odds when he walked out of hospital on is own just 12 days after crashing his Subaru sports wagon.
The catastrophic accident in the Adelaide Hills in 2007 left him with more than one hundred fractured bones, a broken back and a smashed skull.
An extraordinary picture from the time shows his car a roofless, tangled mess of metal.
To this day, the 40-year-old smiles when he sees photos of the wreckage, telling FEMAIL it ended up being the best thing to ever happen to him.
‘Some people find the severity of it confronting, but I think it is beautiful. That’s the moment my life started,’ he said.
‘I went from suffering and feeling worthless to finding gratitude and a love for my life and myself.’
The confronting photos, taken hours after the 3am smash on the main road leading from Adelaide to the hills, still make his mother cry.
And she’s not alone; most people Damien meet admit they feel uncomfortable looking at the pictures and can’t believe he survived. In many ways he didn’t.
The man Damien was before the accident was lost. He had suffered crippling depression and abused drugs for over ten years.
He felt worthless and truly believed his life would never amount to anything.
In his new book Limitless, Damien explains how this cloud lifted the moment he wrecked his car.
He was put into a ‘life-changing coma’ and when he woke up, he saw his devastated mum and knew he had to better himself.
‘I had a profound experience when I was in the coma. One of the first things I did was write it all down so I wouldn’t forget it,’ he said.
These 5,000 words feature in his book.
‘I hardly edited a thing; I didn’t want to change the memory,’ he said.
Some of Australia’s best surgeons had worked on him while he was in a medically induced sleep, reconstructing his face with 40 titanium rods.
When he woke up, doctors said he would have lifelong pain and disabilities, and that he would never be able to smell or taste again.
But Damien ignored their grim predictions and began taking an interest in neuroscience, which he incorporated into his healing.
He not only survived the crash, but soon began to thrive for the first time in his life.
He credits his recovery to meditation and the powerful mind-body connection, as well as his love for his mum.
Damien says he will never forget seeing her for the first time after the accident.
‘When she walked in, I could feel how heartbroken and sad she was. I could feel the pain she was going through. In that moment I knew I would heal and change everything,’ he said.
His mother, whom he describes as ‘compassion through and through’, had been desperately trying to help him with his depression since he was a teenager.
‘It is hard because when you are in that moment [of a depressive episode] you don’t love yourself enough to change for yourself,’ he said.
‘But I saw my mum and knew I had to do it for her.’
Damien said his depression stemmed from his childhood – in particular when his father walked out on the family.
Part of him believed he was unlovable, and this manifested in sadness, reckless behaviour, feelings of unworthiness and drug abuse.
When he got his second chance, Damien decided to use his emotions to ‘heal’ his body – instead of destroying it as he had done in the past.
‘The lost little boy that was inside me all those years wouldn’t believe what I have become,’ he said.
‘I learned the voice that says “you can’t” is correct, but so is the voice that says “you can”.
‘Damien explains neuroscience was only ‘just being talked about’ when he survived his accident in 2007.
He is proud to be able to use his story Limitless as a model for healing.
Part of this ‘holistic’ healing, which links emotional and mental health with physical wellness, involves working on old wounds.
This led to him reaching out to his estranged father.
‘We are really good mates. It is proof it is never too late to reach out to someone to let them know you are thinking of them or missing them,’ he said.
