Hartlepool soldier speaks of Thailand waterfall plunge

Liam Gibson, 21, recounts his horrific accident as he recovers at home

Transcript

00:00So I mean firstly how are you feeling now Liam I mean a lot better than I was

00:05I'm glad to be out of hospital and that it's good to be on obviously yeah I got a lot more support

00:13here you know it's easier for me family to come see us and things like that and yeah I'm slowly

00:18recovering like there's a couple of things aren't going too well like my leg not feeling like it

00:24should be um flexibility wise but yeah we're getting there we're getting somewhere at least

00:31and what are your memories of the actual accident I remember being at the top trying to take the photo

00:38and then yeah I just lost my foot and so I started sliding down towards the edge because obviously I

00:43was a good bit away from the edge um started sliding down towards the edge trying to grab a vine

00:49that snapped I went over don't really remember before walked for the bottom crawled out and then

00:57yeah pretty much just weird to try and get some help and what was going through your mind um

01:05I mean when I slipped obviously I was a bit panicky and then like I realized there was nothing for me to

01:13grab so that's when I sort of like at that point I was like right I'm dying here because like the fall

01:20there was like a it's like an 80 meter fall at the at the end so if I didn't land on the ledge where

01:26I landed I would have went the full way um so like originally I thought I was going right the way over

01:32then when I woke up up at the bottom I thought like oh like a bit of a relief you know like I've survived it

01:37and I was shouting for help and there was no one no one could hear me at the time so that was another

01:43point I sort of like because of my injuries I sort of like accepted I was like yeah that's

01:49pretty much me me gone there and then luckily I heard my girlfriend shouting me

01:55so that was like the second time I sort of found a bit of sense of relief

01:59and how much uh support have you had from people um while you were out there and since you've been

02:05back a massive amount of support really so obviously as as you know about the go from me

02:10at like the people of like around the area the people in the army that have helped me like massive

02:16massive support um it's really I think getting that fundraiser out

02:23obviously at the time we weren't expecting anything to know like support we got like the amount of

02:30money was just crazy so that was really good I've had a lot of support through the army obviously they've

02:36been helping me out with everything I need um Hartley Poole MP Jonathan Brash he's he's been helping me out

02:43there's a few people are reaching out to try and help me with what they can um so I'd say the sport's been

02:49good definitely been good helped me help me through the process