Southsea man battles back from major brain injury to be awarded Masters degree
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Ryan Penfold, 40, saw his life turned upside down on January 26, 2016 after being involved in a serious car accident in Cornwall. After the three-car-collision on the A30 he was transferred to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth where he had life-saving surgery on a serious bleed on the brain and was placed into an induced coma.
His parents were told if he survived he could be left with serious brain damage.
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Hide AdRyan, who had been driving back to Cornwall from Durham, said: ‘I can’t remember anything about the accident itself but I remember the weather leading up to it was very bad.
‘The first thing I remember about waking up was the echo of my mother saying I’d been involved in an accident – she wasn’t there but I think I must have remembered it from what she’d been saying at my bedside.
‘I’ve since been told my life was on the line and they told my mother, Carole, there was a 50/50 chance of serious brain damage.’
After a couple of weeks in intensive care, Ryan was transferred to Queen Alexandra Hospital to be closer to his family.
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Hide Ad‘My memory was badly affected and I remember the nurses kept asking me what their names were,’ said Ryan.
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After being discharged in March 2016, Ryan went to live with his parents. After a career as a software engineer, he was unsure if he would be able to ‘return to what I was’.
‘I just wasn’t able to process things as quickly. I was sat in my parent’s garden thinking about what the future held – whether I could work again,’ he said.
After a pep talk from a friend he thought about ‘stacking shelves in Asda’ but after seeing a different job advert with the supermarket giant he decided to apply.
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Hide Ad‘I got the job as the web designer with Asda and this year I’ve been awarded a Masters degree in software engineering from the University of Leicester,’ added Ryan.
Ryan, who also abseiled down the Spinnaker Tower, hopes his story can act as an inspiration to others.
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