BURST
On the morning of July 19, 2019, Bob Rees and his wife Christine were travelling over a one-way bridge in Malawi, Africa, on a motorcycle trip from Cape Town to Tanzania with friends.
As one vehicle waited on the other side for the two motorcycles to cross, another passed it at high speed and within seconds smashed into the Australian couple, tossing them from their bikes.
“He didn’t brake and kept speeding. I don’t know why,” said Bob, who left Vancouver on Wednesday on a disability awareness ride across North America. “I knew right away my back was gone, as soon as I landed. Then I looked at Chris and she was sitting up and I thought she’s going to be OK.”
Earlier in the week, the couple had visited an African Red Cross station and learned Malawi didn’t have ambulance service outside the capital or an efficient health-care system with access to painkillers.
So the pair knew they were in trouble, as they lay by their motorcycles with mutliple broken bones and a crowd beginning to form.
It took 90 minutes for a local charity’s flatbed truck to arrive and Bob was loaded on a door taken from a nearby home, while Chris was given a mattress. So began a five-hour trip to hospital, during which Chris died from an aneurysm, holding hands with Bob, who was paralyzed from the waist down.
“I knew that Chris was going to die and so did she,” he said. “I count myself lucky we were holding hands and telling each other how much we loved each other. She said it was the best 47 years she could have had and when she died she looked beautiful.”
It has been almost six years since the accident and Bob is embarking on a five-month motorcycle journey that will take him through B.C. and Alberta, down to San Diego, then east to Chicago and back up to Montreal before returning to Vancouver.
“Me and Chris travelled everywhere,” said the affable 77-year-old on his 1750cc 2020 Harley Davidson Sport Glide with a sidecar that holds his wheelchair. “We rode all over Australia several times, through New Zealand, three times in Vietnam, Japan, England, Europe, the Himalayas, the Middle East. We loved adventure.”
The couple had bonded over motorcycles when they first met in the small town of Albany, Western Australia, and had ridden tens of thousands of kilometres around the world before their second and last trip to Africa in 2019.
After the accident Bob flew to Johannesburg, South Africa, for several surgeries before returning to Australia in October 2019.
He spent two months in hospital and rehabilitation in Perth, the capital of Western Australia, before returning to the family home, two days before Christmas.
It was in hospital in South Africa that Bob began planning to ride again.
“It’d been my life since I was 15 so the first thing I was doing was finding out where I could get hand controls,” he said. “I needed something to concentrate on, something to think about apart from Chris and my guilt and my body. That was my way of coping.”
Bob collects and restores vintage motorcycles and had a BMW with a sidecar that he and friends were able to convert so the wheelchair could be rolled on.
In September 2020, he went on his first motorcycle trip and gradually started riding more. Bob is also a musician and during this time recorded a 12-track album called Journey, and in 2023 was honoured with the Community Senior Citizen of the Year Award in Albany.
“It wasn’t until I got the Harley in 2022 that I started planning to go to Europe,” he said.
In May 2023 Bob was in the Isle of Man for the Tourist Trophy motorcycle racing series, then rode his bike 5,500 kilometres from Sydney, Australia, to Albany upon returning to Australia. When he got home he began planning a trip to North America, one of the few regions he and Chris hadn’t visited.
“I’ve come across plenty of disabled riders, but none travelling across countries or even continents on their own, with no carer, etc. And I got to say, Chris and I did a lot of this before, riding through different countries, so I don’t find it overly daunting. The only difference is I’m now paralyzed so it involves a lot of planning.”
Bob realized soon after returning to Albany that he needed to help others, triggered by a talk from an 18-year old girl with physical and mental disabilities who spoke about the bullying she had endured in 11 years at school.
“That started me off. I thought this girl was so strong, and I thought I have got to do whatever I can to try to improve things for other people,” he said.
Bob used $12,000 collected at Chris’s memorial to donate to the charity that owned the truck in Malawi, and to another charity that fits children with prosthetic limbs. He advocates for disability awareness and speaks at schools and special events.
But what is becoming increasingly important for him is just talking to people.
“When I’ve done other long-distance rides as a paraplegic, the bike attracts a lot of attention, people are curious about me and end up telling me what they have to cope with in life and inadvertently I end up helping people just by talking. This has been across continents, it’s been unbelievable and very rewarding,” he said.
“Apart from making people more aware of what life is like in a wheelchair, I want to encourage others who have faced trauma and tragedy, to keep on going making their lives worthwhile, no matter what the age.”
Bob has connected with Edmonton blogger Brittney Neunzig, a paralyzed mother of two whose website empoweredpara.com is a resource for people living with wheelchairs.
“She tackles the subjects that people don’t really talk about. Like going to the toilet and sex and all the different things,” he said. “I told her my story and we’ve become friends, doing podcasts and little documentaries and things.”
One of Neunzig’s YouTube posts on sex as a paraplegic generated 1.1 million views, while other posts talk about topics like avoiding pressure sores, how to travel and dealing with negative emotions.
“It was a very traumatic incident and this is a different life to my first life, which was very adventurous with my wife,” Bob said. “I am trying to make it worthwhile alone, but on these trips I miss her a lot.”
Bob travelled to Merritt on Wednesday to spend a night at the Cold Water Ranch Lodge, run by the Abilitas Foundation, that offers free accommodation to people with disabilities and their families.
“The guy who owns it is a cousin of a friend in Albany. They are full, but are going to squeeze me in,” he said. “From my experiences, I believe 99 per cent of people are genuine, honest, friendly and helpful.”
From there he will travel to Salmon Arm and then to Lake Louise and then to meet Neunzig. He used to cover around 800 km a day on his motorcycle but is limited now to 300 km with one break to ensure he doesn’t develop pressure sores.
“I’ve no real itinerary, just to ride and meet people,” he said.