DAVID CONWAY SUFFERED life-changing injuries when he fell seven storeys on a construction site in Brisbane last July.
When family in his hometown of Rathcoole received the call informing them of what happened, they rushed across to the other side of the world to be by his side.
His brother Steve previously told TheJournal.ie that they thought they “may have been going to collect his body”.
But, nine months and 37 major operations later, ‘Dodge’ Conway is on the road to recovery.
And his friends want to bring him home to Ireland for a pint.
Recovery
The father-of-one had been in a critical condition for a number of months after falling 20 metres from the scaffolding, and was in a coma for some time.
Operations were conducted to amputate his legs, and he received numerous, repeated blood transfusions and, over time, he has slowly begun to recover.
An online fundraising page to support Conway, his wife Viv and daughter Keisha reached its goal of over $50,000, and David is now up and about again.
His friends and family rallied to support him from all over the world with this video featuring dozens of well wishers, with another video of Damien Dempsey singing in support of Conway.
Steve Conway told TheJournal.ie this week that his brother has come on “leaps and bounds” in recent months.
“He had the fall on 10 July,” he said. “He had all those operations, had 82 pints of blood put into him. And then he got out of hospital on Paddy’s Day.”
The money raised is now going towards renovating the house to make it more accessible for David to live in, including ground floor areas to sleep and bathe.
Steve said this brother’s attitude in recovering has been remarkable.
“He’s not letting anything get him down, he’s not letting the no legs bother him,” he said. “He went swimming there with his daughter yesterday. His attitude is unbelievable.”
With David now doing well, and staying positive, his family are keen to arrange a trip home for him.
“Well the doctors have prescribed him the odd Guinness to keep his iron levels up,” Steve explained. “And we know the best Guinness is back home here so it’s a no brainer, really.”
With a petition already earning over 1,300 signatures at the time of writing supporting David’s trip home, Steve is hopeful he’ll get to see his brother back home again soon.
“Mam has been over there with him since last July,” he said. “The plan is to go there in June with the kids and bring her home. Hopefully it won’t be long before Dave is following us back there too.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say