Spinal Network News - August 2017

Java Katzur and Gareth Lynch
JAVA CYCLES THE LENGTH OF
NEW ZEALAND TO RAISE AWARENESS
Mike Brown
Witnessing the accident that left Gareth Lynch a
tetraplegic on 16 September 2016, had a profound
effect on Java Katzur, who we first discovered after
$2,525 mysteriously appeared in the New Zealand Spinal
Trust bank account. When I met with Java and Gareth
seven months later, I discovered how they have both
forged on in admirable ways.
Twenty-year-old Gareth has a gentle calmness about
him. I didn’t ask if this was always the case, but I suspect
so. “After a spinal cord injury, it’s really important not to
lose track of who you are as a person,” Gareth says with
typically laboured tetraplegic breathing, when asked what
advice he has for others in his situation. I knew about the
tragic irony of his accident—an engineering student who
miscalculated a jump. Something you might expect to
see in some jackass stunt. The media took the expected
finger-pointing route and, if we’re honest, most of us
did too. Gareth was 20 years old. His friends watched
him do it. Forget the disbelieving headshaking hindsight!
How’s he doing now?
Java, also 20, nearly backed out of the interview,
concerned it would be too painful for Gareth to talk
about his experience. It’s this empathy that prompted
her to cycle the length of New Zealand to raise
awareness of spinal cord injury. “I wanted to make
people more aware of the effect an accident like this
has on the people around the injured person.” What
an incredible way to do just that, particularly when you
consider Java had hardly ever ridden a bike, and didn’t
even own one!
Gareth stumbles briefly as he recalls the moments
directly after his accident. He recovers and describes the
fog of medications and the weeks of denial. “I thought
it would all come back to the way it was, like it had in
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