MEDICAL experts have coined him "The Miracle Man" and his X-rays show why.
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Dubbo's Michael Cleary should have died when a motorcycle accident two-and-a-half years ago left him with multiple facial, jaw, spinal, pelvic, femur and scapula fractures, a lacerated spleen, perforated bladder, massive blood loss and an acquired brain injury.
But thanks to the expertise of the Westpac rescue helicopter crew and the trauma service at John Hunter Hospital, an experimental drug and the support of his family, Mr Cleary not only survived but is leading a happy life as a husband and father.
Not that it has been an easy road.
The nightmare began for the Cleary family one day in January 2012 when Michael was involved in a collision between Moree and Narrabri while riding his Harley Davidson.
Wife Kristy had been following in a separate vehicle with the couple's two daughters; Indiana, 7, and Scarlett, 5.
As she approached the crash scene, Mrs Cleary knew something was terribly wrong. Sensing her husband had been seriously injured, she parked her vehicle.
"At first I wasn't allowed near him," she said.
"Then when I was, my feeling was he probably wouldn't make it. I talked to him, not that he could comprehend, and just did my best to make him comfortable in case he passed away," she said.
"He was flat on his back for ten weeks because he wasn't allowed to get out of bed, a month of that he was on life support."
"And I couldn't talk because my jaw was shattered," Mr Cleary said.
Several weeks and 1500 stitches later, the Clearys would be told by one doctor at the time he was able to put his hand into Mr Cleary's chest cavity.
Mrs Cleary rode in the ambulance with her critically-injured husband to Narrabri Hospital. It was several hours before he was stable enough to be airlifted to John Hunter Hospital. He was taken to the chopper after using all of Narrabri's blood supply.
"Meanwhile another chopper flew around getting blood from Dubbo, we have since found out blood was also driven by police from Moree as well, not to mention the extra driven to Tamworth WRHS chopper pad where they also worked on him while refuelling," Mrs Cleary said.
Upon Mr Cleary's arrival at John Hunter Hospital, surgeons operated on him until the early hours of the morning.
Apart from the amazing medical team there led by Professor Zsolt Balogh, Mrs Cleary said, it was an experimental drug called transexamic acid that helped pull her husband across the line.
The substance helps restore blood clotting to battle traumatic cogagulopathy, a condition that often kills trauma patients because they lose so much blood before and when they first arrive at a trauma centre.
If given early enough, it can massively decrease a patient's chances of dying from trauma-related blood loss.
"Without that drug I would have bled out," Mr Cleary said.
Astonishingly, Mr Cleary survived surgery and then underwent more surgery on a near-daily basis for the next few days.
Then came three weeks in the intensive care unit before he was transferred to the trauma unit.
"At first I didn't know who my wife and kids were," Mr Cleary said.
Mrs Cleary said her husband had "states where he'd be out of it most of the time and a couple of times a day we'd have the real him for a minute".
"He would remember he had an accident but sometimes it was like, what's this sticking out of me?" she said.
"He was flat on his back for ten weeks because he wasn't allowed to get out of bed, a month of that he was on life support."
What followed was months of rehabilitation where Mr Cleary had to learn to sit, stand, walk, read and speak again. It was a far cry from the fit twenty-something who had played rugby for the Dubbo Kangaroos and Warren Pumas.
"We got a whiteboard for him to write on when he woke up because his jaw was wired shut," Mrs Cleary said.
"He would just draw these big circles and get frustrated I couldn't understand what he was writing. I also got a fingerboard for him to point to things to communicate but he couldn't spell.
At first, sitting for 30 seconds made Mr Cleary feel like he had run a marathon, but he built up strength and spent the next three months learning to walk.
After spending five months in hospital, Mr Cleary was relieved to go home, but that brought its own challenges.
Spending a large chunk of the first year in a wheelchair, a special one due to his near two metre stature, was one of them. Indeed, the difficulties he encountered during an outing to a concert showed Mr Cleary "the world is not made for wheelchairs".
While most of the doorways in their house were large enough for the wheelchair to go through, the bedroom one was not.
"He'd wheel to the door, he'd get up on crutches and we'd have to squeeze the wheelchair in," Mrs Cleary said.
The family also had to buy a four-wheel-drive because Mr Cleary could not get into their old sedan.
"For the first two years I spent 18 hours a day in bed," Mr Cleary said.
"The only times I was up was for physio and then it was back to bed."
Just when it seemed one obstacle had been overcome, further challenges presented themselves, with Mr Cleary developing a massive growth on his pelvis that "ended up like a handle" as a complication of his bone cells healing.
"That's why I couldn't bend, I still can't put my shoes, socks and pants on," Mr Cleary said. He was also "an inch shorter" on one side of his body than the other.
Mr Cleary underwent his 25th operation earlier this year.
"That's all they'll do for a few years," he said.
"Then they'll do my shoulders, hips, knees and ankle reconstruction."
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Michael Cleary's injuries were extensive:
- Multiple facial and jaw fractures
- Fracture to right femur
- Pelvic fractures
- Fractured hands
- Multiple spinal fractures
- Fracture to scapula
- Lacerated spleen
- Bladder perforation
- Massive degloving injury
- Acquired brain injury
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A scooter and physiotherapy sourced from Dubbo-based Precision Health Care had been of enormous help to his rehabilitation, Mr Cleary said. The company is a sponsor of a golf day to be held later this year to help raise money for the Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service which helped save his life.
Mr and Mrs Cleary, who celebrate 12 years together this year, are acutely aware they have been given a second chance at life.
"It is hard, but there is no point feeling sorry for yourself," Mrs Cleary said.
"People you meet in hospital have sick and dying children, they are worse off than us."
Mr Cleary said he did not understand how lucky he was to be alive until medical staff told the couple there were six others in hospital at the same time as him who had "an eighth of the injuries" Michael had but sadly died.
"My theory is I'm meant to be here," Mr Cleary said.
The ordeal had been tough on the couple's two daughters too.
"Kristy and the kids were only about two or three minutes behind when I had the accident, they saw me with bones hanging out," Mr Cleary said.
Mr Cleary, who had been passionate about riding motorcycles since he was a child, realises he will probably never ride one again. But through speaking at safe driving schools and other public events, he hopes to make the roads safer.
"I'm particularly determined to make people conscious of the need for motorists to check their blind spot, not just their mirrors but over their shoulders," he said.
Mr Cleary's right leg is paralysed from the knee down and his left leg is partially paralysed from the knee down.
While there was more surgery and recovery to come, Mr Cleary remained determined something positive would come from the life-changing event.
"Not being able to do my job again is hard, it was all I had done since I was 17," he said.
"I was a partner in business banking quite high up in the bank, but I don't think I'll work full-time again simply because I have to rest so much, I can't dress myself.
"I want to share my story with and hopefully inspire people who are going through rehabilitation. Being able to help people makes me feel I've got a purpose.
"We hope to be able to help raise awareness of the life-saving work done by Professor Balogh at John Hunter Hospital, which is a specialist trauma and education hospital."
Years later, Mr Cleary's courageous battle continues to amaze and inspire both medical experts and regular members of the public.
Mr Cleary said one medical imaging technologist in Dubbo told him "I know that pelvis", having come across it when it was used as a case study during her own studies.
National Blood Donor Week began on Sunday and runs through to Saturday.
The Australian Red Cross Blood Service is using the occasion to thank Australia's 500,000 blood donors who together made more than 1.3 donations over the past year.
In Dubbo, 46 donors will be recognised for blood donation milestones of 50 donations or more at a function at Dubbo Golf Club tonight.
Between them, about 2000 litres of blood have flowed from Dubbo donor centre to more than 600 hospitals around Australia.
Without the blood service, Kristy Cleary said, her husband Michael would surely have run out of blood.
It was also vitally important in the year after the accident.
"Michael used up all of Narrabri's blood supply and a helicopter actually came to Dubbo to pick up more supplies which were delivered by police escort just as Michael was leaving via ambulance to the chopper pad," she said.
Dubbo residents are among those being urged to support Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service Charity Golf Day on Friday, September 5, presented by The Martin Group of Companies
Registrations for the four-person ambrose event close on August 9. The $100 per player entry includes golf, lunch, dinner, a commemorative golf shirt and entertainment.
The Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service includes four helicopters operating across the Hunter, New England - North West, Central Coast and Mid North Coast regions. It undertakes more than 1000 missions each year.
On board the rescue helicopters is a crew of highly-trained and skilled paramedics and medical staff, pilots, air and rescue crew members