Jimmy is now back on his feet and has met with the paramedic crews who helped save his life.

The reunion took place at Jimmy’s home, when paramedics pieced together the missing hours of his treatment of which the 17-year-old has no recollection.

“It was great to finally meet them, to thank them for what they did for me. The doctors and nurses were excellent, but the paramedics were the ones on the roadside, they started my treatment and got me to hospital,” Jimmy said. 

As family and friends will attest, very little slows Jimmy down. The Year 12 Rutherford High School student was a junior speedway motorbike champion, travelling to Europe and the UK to compete, training at the Australian Institute of Sport, and ranked 17 in the world by age 14.

Injuries from previous crashes had left him with a brain injury and debilitating seizures, but he maintained his training schedule, running up to 10km a day, in preparation for a return to the track.

The momentum of his life changed dramatically on the afternoon of February 28 this year when, while jogging along the New England Hwy near his home at Greta, west of Maitland, he was hit by a ute and came close to losing his life.

The collision left him with multiple, serious injuries including 25 broken bones, internal bleeding from damage to his kidneys, a punctured lung, head injury and severely broken left leg, which was bent behind his back.

More than eight weeks later, he is making his way to recovery with characteristic energy and enthusiasm. Currently wheelchair-bound, he is keen to be free of the restriction so he can start his six months of physiotherapy.

“There’s a lot of physio ahead but I’m going really good and keen to get on with it,” he said.

Paramedics, including Tony Rockley, Heath Winter, Cameron Powell, Sam Mendel, Michael Smalley and Kelly Burns, arrived on scene to find Jimmy lying in the middle of the road in a great deal of pain.

Jimmy thankfully remembers nothing of the incident and it remained for his family to fill in the missing, traumatic hours.

His sister Vicky, 21, attended the scene after being alerted by a neighbour who saw Jimmy being treated by paramedics on the highway. She contacted her parents Dennis and Natalie.

“Vicky said, ‘Mum, get to John Hunter Hospital, Jimmy’s been hit by a car and he’s really bad’,” Natalie recalled.

“I was closer to the hospital and arrived there before him. When I saw him I was in shock. He was in a coma and obviously seriously injured.”

Dennis was halfway to Sydney in his role as a petrol tanker driver and was unable to reach the hospital until 10pm, as Jimmy was being wheeled into surgery.

“He’d severed the main artery in his leg. The surgeon said if it had been any higher he would have been dead before he even got in the ambulance,” Dennis said.

“His leg was pretty bad; it almost had to be amputated. In the end they replaced his femur with a titanium rod.

“They were also going to remove his kidneys because of the bleeding but they self-clotted on their own. His body was working overtime.”

Jimmy has since returned to school and embraced the chance to resume a level of normalcy.

Paramedic Rockley said he and his colleagues were thankful for the opportunity to meet Jimmy under less traumatic circumstances.

“Often you don’t get to see the other side so it was great to see him.

“He actually expressed a desire to be a paramedic one day, so good luck Jimmy!”