“I had no interest in going to America, but encouraged by my Dad; I went anyway with my brother Joe in March 1983 to see what it was like. We started in New York, just in time for Paddy’s Day, and it was the coldest I had ever felt in my life.

Soon after, we moved to Chicago and fast forward to 1992, I was working with a big company called ‘Concept Plumbing’. Everything was going great, and there wasn’t a thing I would have changed in my life. One day while working on a four-lane highway, I jumped off my machine to stop traffic. The first car stopped, but suddenly, the second car came out of nowhere and before I knew it, I was being carried on the bonnet, ending up pinned between the car and the machine I had been driving before rolling off his car and onto the ground. I woke up 21 days later without a memory of what had happened. When I was in a coma, I relived my childhood. It was so real. It was just unbelievable. When I woke up, I could have told you everything in detail about what happened when I was a kid, but I couldn’t remember stuff from my recent past. So here I was in Lutheran General Hospital with my Mom and Dad, sisters and brothers gathered around me. My first question to Mom was, “Where’s Joseph?” because he was the only one not there. She said, “he’s in Ireland,” and I said, “Ireland? Sure, where do you think I am?”. I was completely confused. I woke up thinking I was still young and living at home in Cloneygowan. “Patrick, you’re in America. You had a bad accident,” said Mom, and that was when I started noticing all the machines that I was hooked up to. Details of the accident started coming back to me as Mom was calling for the nurses and doctors to come. They had to put me into an induced coma because I had just broken down. I still hadn’t realised that I had lost a leg.

When I got to the hospital, they weren’t even concentrating on saving my left leg (my right leg was gone on the spot); they were wondering if I would make it. I couldn’t have had a better surgeon than Dr Paddock. He was one of the best in the business. What got me through that time was my Mom’s prayers and everyone’s prayers in Ireland. It was absolute hell. My Dad also helped me get through it. He was the strongest person I knew.

Some months after the accident, I was transferred from Lutheran General to the RIC, a big rehab hospital. I was really angry, I had tears in my eyes, and I just couldn’t bear going down to this place. I had been in Lutheran for seven months, where everyone knew my name and did everything for me. In this new place, if I needed therapy, I had to go and check in myself. Nobody was coming to me.
I went up and said to the girl behind the desk, “My name is Patrick Byrne, and I’m here for therapy today”. Her response, “Take a seat, and someone will be with you in a little bit”, made me annoyed.
Everything was scheduled; if you weren’t scheduled, you weren’t getting an appointment. I went over to take a seat, and I had tears coming out of my eyes, sitting with crutches and minus a leg. I looked over at the girl, and she was smiling at me. I put my head down to think of something to say to her. I was so mad that she was smiling. When I looked back up, I was never more embarrassed in my entire life. She was sitting there with no arms and no legs and in a wheelchair. I put my head back down in shame, and when I looked down, it was the first time that I realised what I had. Before that, I used to look down and see what I had lost. That was an unbelievable turning point for me.

If I hadn’t gotten off that machine that day, would I have what I have today? I was seeing another girl at the time of the accident, and we went our separate ways. It was ten months after the accident that I met Kathy at an Irish festival in Milwaukee. My brother Joseph started seeing Kathy’s sister Eileen too, and two brothers ended up marrying two sisters!

Kathy has always been an unbelievable support to me. We have three children, Bridget, Caroline and Patrick Junior. I am also so lucky to have the family that I have. I had a lot of bad thoughts after the accident, and if I ever came close to saying goodbye, someone was always there to stop me, be it a phone call or whatever. Some people have absolutely nobody in this world. The way I look at it is I lost something in life but found something much better”.

Patrick Byrne lives in Chicago, originally from Cloneygowan, Co. Offaly.

Patrick is back working as a heavy equipment operator! He took up golf after his accident and teaches people without limbs how to play, using a special golf cart to get around the course. He has travelled all over America playing golf in competitions sponsored by the RIC. He won a gold medal in the Paralympics in 2002, representing America in sled hockey. Patrick now counsels stroke survivors, amputees and war veterans.