'IN THE US I DON'T SPEND HALF MY LIFE ASKING FOR ACCESS'

LAND OF THE FREE | TV PRESENTER SOPHIE MORGAN ON WHY 'REASONABLE' ACCESSIBILITY DOESN'T GO FAR ENOUGH

- LISA BLAKE

Sophie Morgan has often spoken about how she wouldn’t change the 2003 car crash that left her with a lifelong spinal injury because it has led to so many amazing opportunities in her life. She’s covered the London 2012 Paralympic Games, hosted the Tokyo Paralympics in 2021, is a Loose Women panellist and is radically changing representation of disability on television – to name just a few of her accomplishments.

Sophie, 37, was 18 and what she describes as a “very inexperienced” driver when she was involved in the crash that left her paralysed from the chest down. She spent three months in hospital rehabilitating and now uses a wheelchair.

But for the disability trailblazer, it’s a different injury – one that she experienced after the crash – that she says “haunts” her every day. In her early twenties, Sophie had to lie mostly in bed on her front for an extended period after a splinter in her right buttock got infected. When it was removed, it left a scar the size of an “ice-cream scoop” that needed time to heal. The ordeal lasted for three years, with Sophie unable to go out and mostly confined to bed during that time.

Since then, at various points throughout her life, she has had to go on bed rest when the skin gets damaged during transfer from her wheelchair. The last time it happened was during lockdown in 2021 when she was writing her memoir, Driving Forwards, as she was sitting in the same position for long periods of time. It resulted in the wound being damaged and she had to go on bed rest for two months.