A man left with lifelong disabilities after a brain injury said he became a different person after the incident and grieved for his former self.
Andy Nicholson, from Lincoln, received the serious injury when he fell down a 20ft unmarked stairwell on a building site and landed on his head when he was 24.
Doctors expected him to die in the first 24 hours but years later he is still alive and living with the aftereffects of the incident.
He now wants to raise awareness of brain injuries because he says they are often unnoticed by everyday people.
The 48-year-old, from Lincoln, said: “It’s like grieving [when you have an injury]. You forget who you were and find out who you are.
“I don’t think you do come to terms with [the injury] . It suddenly becomes normal.
“I was working on a building site in Germany in 1994 when the incident happened.
“I was in a coma when I was taken to hospital and I was kept in a coma for three weeks.
“I was in hospital for a further six weeks when the effects of my brain injury became apparent.”
After this period he was flown home to hospital in Lincoln where he was discharged after 48 hours.
Some of the disabilities that Mr Nicholson suffers with today because of the incident include epilepsy, chronic fatigue and as he was injured on the right side of his brain the left side of his body struggles with co-ordination.
Mr Nicholson said that his wife is now his carer and she has to remember things for him because his short-term memory has also been affected.
He added: “I am very very lucky. I take everyday as it comes but I enjoy each day.
“You adapt and you come to accept a new way of life – the many conditions become the new normal. I can only remember bits of the man I was prior to the accident.
“My family saw a change in personality and they say I am completely different.”
Mr Nicholson, who has named himself the Brain Damaged Baron, is organising a walk for people to take part in anywhere around the world to raise awareness and money for brain injury charities.
He is starting in Lincoln at the Plough pub and is walking to Leadenham and back.
There are also people walking for the cause on July 1 in Australia, Ireland and Ibiza.
He said: “It’s about showing you can live on after a brain injury. I have to get the awareness out there. I may look okay but I am not okay.
“The awareness is the be all and end all. I have been fighting for a long time for this.”
His wife Sharon Nicholson, who is also from Lincoln, said she had no idea that her husband had a brain injury when they first met.
She said: “There are no visible signs and that is the hardest thing, to get people to understand.
“He is permanently tired and he gets tired talking on the phone.
“It is fine being his carer. He is my husband and I just view it as working with my husband everyday.”
The walk will take place on July 1 at 10am.
Anyone who would like to donate should visit www.justgiving.com/fundraising/walkwiththebaron or braindamagedbaron.com
