North man's Olympic dream after horror crash

Sep 4 2011 by Helen Rae, Sunday Sun

INSPIRATIONAL North athlete Scott Steele has his sights set on competing for Team GB at the Paralympics, just four years after a car crash left him with a severe spinal injury.

The determined 22-year-old is currently undergoing a gruelling training regime in the health club at Chase Park Rehabilitation Centre in Whickham in a bid to make one of the regional disabled rowing clubs.

He then hopes to stand a chance of qualifying for the national team.

Scott, from Dunston, Gateshead, is aiming to become one of the UK’s top 50 disabled rowers to compete in the single skull event and then eventually take his place alongside the elite members that make up Team GB’s Paralympic rowing team.

Scott was paralysed from the chest down - with movement in his arms - following a serious head-on car collision in Washington, County Durham, in 2007.

It left him needing several operations and intensive rehabilitation treatment.

He said: “I am determined to represent the region in Paralympics rowing and I am working very hard to achieve my goal with the aim of making the London 2012 games.

“If I do not make next year, my dream still remains to fly the flag for the North East and of course Team GB on the international stage.

“When I was left paralysed following the car crash I went into real depths of depression and had to rely heavily on my family for everything - at one point things got so bad that I did contemplate taking my own life.

“But one day I woke up and realised that I needed to change.