Nightclub crash survivor has message of resilience after lengthy fight for life

A when an out-of-control car smashed into a crowd says his road to recovery has completely changed his outlook on life.

Adam Ashburn was a professional golfer until one night when he was queuing outside a nightclub with friends all excited to celebrate a birthday.

As they queued, they could hear two sports cars racing along the street. One of the vehicles hit the line of revellers, killing a bouncer and seriously injuring 12 other people, including Mr Ashburn.

He says it’s a “miracle” he survived. The father-of-two said: “I joke that I was absolutely fine from the neck up. I didn’t have a single head injury.”

He added: “So I was actually compos mentis.

“I had my wits about me. I sort of knew what was going on to some degree. I think I was lucky that it was such a low-ended sports car that it just smashed into our legs.

“And I shot up in the air. Bodies were thrown 20 feet in the air, which I think makes sense in some respect.

“I had lower leg injuries as well as I had other injuries all over, which probably came from landing, I suspect.

“Then I was just lying on the floor, and it was just chaos. There was screaming and there was all sorts going on. It was really hard to understand all the chaos, really.

“And then not long after, and and ambulances turned up. I remember trying to move like I was trying to get somewhere. I don’t really know where.

“But I just couldn’t. I couldn’t. My body wouldn’t work.”

The critically ill 19-year-old was taken by ambulance from the scene outside The Dome II nightclub in to hospital, where his recovery journey began.

Since that night in July 1999 Mr Ashburn, who is now 44, has undergone more than 60 operations to fix his life-changing injuries.

He was bedridden and then in a wheelchair before gradually learning to walk again. He has also overcome opioid addictions and mental health challenges.

And around 14 years ago he came to the realisation that he had to shape up or ship out.

The marketing firm co-founder said: “Because of my injuries I ended up getting dreadfully hooked on like strong opioid medication so that was something that I had to deal with.

“I got to a stage where I was like there’s only two things that are going to happen from here.”

He added: “Either I’m going to end up taking so many meds that I don’t wake up or I sort my s*** out.

“There’s been a lot of really, really down times in my life. But I think the one blessing of all of this is the resilience that it’s given me now.

“I’ve got quite a good and strong mindset and outlook on life. I think the mental, the addiction side of things is a lot harder to overcome psychologically than the injuries.”

Mr Ashburn was unable to go back to golf professionally but learned to walk again and still enjoys playing the sport.

He said: “I made a very conscious switch in my mind when I decided that enough was enough and I needed to get off my meds where I was, you know, I was living as a victim, if you like.

“Then I took ownership and responsibility for it myself and went okay, I got run over, I got smashed to pieces. But now how I choose to react, respond, think is entirely down to me and nobody else.”

He added: “I made that conscious mindset shift and just took responsibility for it myself.

“I can’t control what happened to me, but I can control what I choose to do off the back of it.”

And he has some words of advice for anyone trying to make “new year, new me” type changes at the start of 2025.

He said: “Most of the time we can’t control what happens to us. But the only thing that we can control is how we respond. And the response is on us as individuals.

“I think if you if you were to live your life, where you take responsibility for everything, I think people would be a lot happier because there’s no happiness in blame and victim in my mind.”