18 Sep 2025
Overcoming obstacles: Steve’s Only The Brave challenge
One of the people taking part in Only The Brave, our muddy obstacle course event on 21 September, is Dr. Steve Jones. Steve is a former patient of East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA) and is taking on the six-mile route. He was involved in a serious motorcycle collision in June 2018. As he overtook a car, it turned into his path catapulting him from his motorbike, head-first through a wall and into a water-filled ditch.
The Anglia One (Norwich) crew were tasked by helicopter and carried out advanced interventions on Steve at the scene, including inducing him into a coma which would last five weeks, before flying him to Addenbrooke’s Hospital. Steve had sustained a severe traumatic brain injury, including three bleeds on his brain, which neither the EAAA crew nor NHS doctors believed he would survive from. Not only did Steve survive but he later completed his PhD in Business and Software Engineering at the University of East Anglia (UEA) – and is taking part in his first Only The Brave event this year. We recently spoke with Steve to hear his thoughts ahead of event day.
“It’s a new challenge for me and I’m keen to see what I’m capable of. Exercise has been a big thing for me and is now part of the new person I am since my brain injury.
I’ve taken part in EAAA’s Trek 24 before, but I’ve never done anything like Only The Brave, but I’m feeling motivated ahead of the day. The obstacles look like good challenges and I’m looking forward to the endorphin rush! I’m a little bit apprehensive about the monkey bars obstacle – mainly because I could never do them when I was a child!
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As I go around the course, I expect I will ‘go into my own little world’ with the knowledge that I’m doing something for EAAA and helping to keep their helicopters (especially G-RESU!) in the air. But there’s a deeper meaning for me because without EAAA, I would not have survived, a fact that the NHS doctors at Addenbrooke’s made very clear to me after I awoke from my coma, as they helped me come to terms with what had happened. Thanks to the EAAA crew, I received treatment quickly at the scene; but it’s even more than that. EAAA’s Aftercare service helped me to pick up the five weeks of lost memory and helped me to connect with other survivors, people who understood how I felt.
EAAA and the NHS gave me a new life, and I’m still getting to know that new person now.
When I completed my PhD, EAAA held an unofficial graduation for me and my supervisor, Professor Fiona Lettice, at Helimed House, the charity’s Norwich base. I sat in G-RESU, the helicopter that attended my incident, and it was a very special moment.
I have now exceeded my fundraising target of £1,000. I put my story on my JustGiving fundraising page and it really had an impact. I gave a cyber security and fraud awareness talk on behalf of both Norfolk and Suffolk Police and UEA to a Lowestoft East Point Rotary club in July, and they donated over £500 – I couldn’t hold back the emotion. While it was a complete surprise, it was also a big boost to my fundraising after they had followed my story for a few years.
To the other participants of Only The Brave this year, you’ve got this! But, as a former patient and from the bottom of my heart I really want to say thank you. Without fundraising, the level of treatment I received at the scene and the transfer by air to Addenbrooke’s Hospital, the Major Trauma Centre, wouldn’t have happened. During my darkest hour, EAAA were there, and I was given a second chance – thanks to the efforts of people like you. I truly hope you really enjoy the event and do so in the knowledge that somewhere, you’ve contributed to saving another life!”
