An inspiring mother-of-three who broke her neck on an obstacle course is running this year’s London Marathon to thank medical staff at Addenbrooke’s who she says saved her life.
Liza Putwain, 44, who lives just outside Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, was taking part in a challenge obstacle course – one she had run every year since its launch – when she was flipped from one of the obstacles and broke her neck.
She was taken to Ipswich Hospital before being transferred to Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge where she underwent surgery and stayed for her four-week recovery.
Now Liza, a film studies teacher at Abbeygate Sixth Form College in Bury St Edmunds, hopes to raise as much money as she can to thank staff who saved her life.
Liza will be running for Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust (ACT) in this year’s London Marathon on Sunday April 27th. As the official charity for Addenbrooke’s and the Rosie, ACT funds cutting-edge equipment, groundbreaking research, and improvements to the environment for both staff and patients, above and beyond what the NHS is able to provide.
Proving all her hard work and rehabilitation has been worth it, Liza took part in the Cambridge Half Marathon earlier this month – making it her third fastest half yet, coming in with a time of 2.07.45. “I was totally gobsmacked,” she said.
Liza, whose three children were aged between 9 and 16 at the time of her accident in September 2023, had been running the obstacle course in memory of her husband, Ian, who had died unexpectedly eight months earlier following complications that developed from a virus that the whole family had had, including their three children; daughters Ella and Sophie and son, Charlie.
Liza ran the challenge obstacle course with her daughter, Ella, and close friends, Xav and Debs and their son Max. She was less than five miles in when tragedy struck, and she was flipped from an inflatable seesaw and broke her neck.
“I knew straight away I had broken my neck. I heard it snap and then I just felt the feeling drain from my neck down. It was a massive shock and of course I just thought, ‘That’s it. Game over’.”
It took around 12 paramedics half an hour to move her because the inflatable was moving constantly. She was taken to Ipswich Hospital where she was told she had broken her neck and had suffered damage to her spinal cord before being transferred to Addenbrooke’s where she was operated on 24 hours later.
Liza’s spine was realigned whilst she was still awake. She then went under general anaesthetic so metal could be placed in her neck to support her broken vertebrae.
Looking back at the care she received at Addenbrooke’s, Liza has nothing but praise for all the medical staff who cared for her along the way – from the paramedics to her surgeon and clinical staff on the ward.
“The paramedics were amazing. I remember one of them telling me on the way there it would be really shocking when I got to hospital as there would be a whole team on me, so he really helped prepare me for what was going to happen. And it’s really weird because I don’t know who any of them are, I don’t know any of their names. I could walk past them in the street and not know it was them.”
“I saw some paramedics in Addenbrooke’s in the coffee shop and told them about my accident and said to them, ‘I know it wasn’t you but I just want to tell you how much of a difference your colleague made in that moment because you will have done that for someone else and they won’t be able to thank you either and tell you what a difference you made to them at that time.”
Liza also praised the female doctor she met on her arrival. “There was a female doctor, I don’t know who she was, but she was so good. I thought I was going to be sick and I was really worried that I was going to choke because I couldn’t move.”
She was taken to the Neuro Critical Care Unit (NCCU) where she spoke to a doctor who had been visiting from Africa and says: “It occurred to me then that if this had happened to me in another place, or another time, I would be dead. Thank God for the fact I live near Addenbrooke’s and it was 2023.”
Liza also has huge praise for her surgeon, Mark Kotter - “Not just because he performed the surgery but because of how he was afterwards. He was so caring and lovely. It’s one thing to be able to cut you open and perform the surgery, but he had so much empathy too.”
For Liza, her accident was the first time she had ever broken a bone. “I’ve done lots of crazy things in the past. I grew up horse riding; I've done obstacle courses and coasteering where you jump off cliffs into water, but I’d never broken any bones before.”
When she came round from surgery, she was still unable to move because of the damage to her spinal cord and had to rely on nurses to do things like scratch her nose. Despite this, she says she felt ecstatic after her operation.
‘I kept thinking I’m alive and I can talk! There was no damage to my vocal cords. My friends Jo and Pennie came to see me and we just cried because we were so happy.”
It was then she told staff in NCCU that she had planned to run the London Marathon the following April. Whilst no-one was able to conclusively tell her she would walk again, she said the hope was there. “They were the ones who told me I could do it and that became my motivation, something to aim for.”
The feeling gradually returned in Liza’s legs and a week after her operation she was transferred to a ward. “They kept trying to sit me up, but I had postural hypertension, which affected my blood pressure, so I couldn’t sit up for long.”
She said the dark times came when she was worrying about her kids. “I really worried about them. My dad and sister took it in turns to stay overnight with them but Ella, who had just started sixth form, basically ran the house. Talking to her afterwards she just said she realised she had to grow up and it was down to her.”
But she said there were funny moments with her kids too. “We messaged lots and face-timed. And as they got more used to me being here, they would send me links to Amazon to things they wanted me to buy. Another time, Ella messaged to ask if she could get another piercing and I was like, ‘whatever’.”
“Another time, I looked at her Instagram and she was wearing a jumper that I’d bought and not worn yet. I had to give it to her cause she looked so good in it. Other times they’d call me up and tell me, Charlie’s done this, or Sophie’s done that. And I was like, ‘I cannot sort out an argument from my hospital bed.”
Liza said one of the hardest things for her following her accident was the sense of powerlessness that comes when you can’t move and have to rely entirely on someone else to help you - “You feel very infantilised because you have to ask someone to help you go to the toilet and wait until somebody’s ready to give you a shower.”
Liza took her first tentative steps, using a walker, two weeks after her operation. “I was so scared; I was so wobbly. It was like a shuffle of a few steps to sit in a chair. But it felt amazing. I had completed marathons before, and it was that kind of level of achievement for me.”
She returned home a month after surgery with her sister and best friends there to help her. “I was just so glad to go home but at the same time so scared. I couldn’t do much at all really, just a slow steady walk. I couldn’t move my right arm, and I am right-handed so I had to use my left arm to lift my right arm to help me clean my teeth and I could just about wash my face. The kids would go to school and it would take me all day just to put a load of washing on and hang it out. It was very frustrating.”
Liza – who wants to be as open about her recovery as possible to help others – said her friends were amazing, even helping to shave her armpits - “It was the first thing I wanted to do when I got home. I could lift my left arm but not my right so my friend Jo held my arm up while my other friend Pennie shaved my armpit for me.”
She said doing anything again for the first time was scary – from leaving the hospital, to going for a walk to driving, but said everyone in her local community helped by signing up for jobs on a Facebook help page - “Everyone rallied round and did so much.”
Liza’s neck brace was removed six weeks after her surgery and she started having physio, including Pulsed Magnetic Field Therapy. Three months after her surgery, she had her first session with a personal trainer, started working with weights, and did her first run in March 2024 – six months after her accident.
“It was so hard not to cry. I mean, I did cry. When you don’t know if you’re going to be able to walk again, it feels amazing to be able to do it.”
During her recovery she fell over on a run and sprained her ankle and broke her finger and then in August last year had a cyst removed from her neck.
She ran her first half marathon in September last year, three days before the anniversary of her accident saying - “I’ve run tonnes before that, but I will never forget doing that one and being able to do it.”
Lasting effects of the accident include Liza not being able to feel her fingertips on her right hand and only a couple on her left. The soles of her feet feel tingly constantly and are painful when cold, and her reactions are not as fast as they were - “The amount of plates and cups and stuff I’ve broken because I’m a fraction of a second too late.”
Liza is running this year’s London Marathon on April 27th for ACT as a way of thanking all the hospital staff who helped save her life and said “I’ve got loads of people coming down to watch me. It’s going to be really emotional.”
Asked why she wanted to fundraise for ACT, Liza said: “I love Addenbrooke’s. It’s weird because you could go one way or the other, and you could be like, I never want to see that hospital again, but I feel so safe when I am here.”
“Being in hospital for as long as I was you just realise how much additional support is needed. Everyone is doing the best they can but the NHS is just so overstretched and it’s like I say to everybody, you just don’t know when you will need it. You hope it won’t be you but at some point, it probably is going to be you or your loved ones or someone that you know.”
To donate to Liza’s Just Giving Page, search for LIZA PUTWAIN. To donate to ACT, go to: www.act4addenbrookes.org.uk/donate
