I recently took part in the final leg of a charity run that was taking place around the South East. I run a few times every week, time allowing, and have done so for the past six years. I'm not a great athlete -- I plod along at my own pace, and rarely do more than three or four miles -- but I enjoy it, and it keeps me reasonably fit and healthy.

I'm not going to pretend that I excelled to any great degree during my brief stint on the charity gallop. Paul Brazzil, a relative of mine, was running 200km around the South East to raise money and awareness for breast cancer and cystic fibrosis, and he was accompanied by some fairly hard-core marathon runners and endurance sportsmen.

I suspect that they slowed their pace somewhat to accommodate me, but I managed to (more or less) keep up with them for the bones of three miles, and I was quite proud of myself.

When I recall the fact that, seven years ago, I was terribly overweight, and due to a serious car accident I wasn't even sure whether or not I'd be able to walk unaided again, it puts even a minor physical accomplishment into perspective.

At the beginning of the new millennium, I was grasping the Celtic Tiger firmly by the tail. I had foolishly given up a secure job with the HSE to do some consultancy, and was spending my time virtually living in my car. I was eating very badly -- munching on chocolate and junk food all day as I drove from one meeting to another, ignoring the pleas of my family and friends to slow down and take some responsibility for where my life was going.

As is so often the case, I saw nothing wrong with my lifestyle. I did not even acknowledge that I was fat. The fact that I tormented my wife with snoring brought on by sleep apnoea, that I always had a pack of Rennies to hand because of chronic heartburn I suffered, or that I could barely climb the stairs without sweating and losing my breath was all just coincidental, I told myself.

Little did I know that fate was about to step in, and make me stop and take stock.

On March 16 2001, I was driving an insignificant backroad, on my way home from doing something equally unimportant. I often wonder what path my life might have taken had I not been on that stretch of road at that specific time, because everything I have done afterwards has stemmed from that dumb chance -- it affected the lives of me and my family profoundly.

I had traversed the road countless times. I would probably have said that I could have driven it blindfolded. Yet, this particular evening, God decided to have some fun with me.

I have no recollection of what happened. It is as if the film of my life happens to be one of those cheap grindhouse movies, with a missing reel. I know I was knocked insensible, but I have no memory of the experience. I have a sense of a period of blackness, interspersed with snatches of conversation, moments of terrible pain, and the sound of someone screaming, but that is all.

When I came around, I was in intensive care. A male nurse, whose face and name I cannot recall, told me that I had hit an articulated lorry head on, and assured me (I was told later that I'd had this conversation countless times as I drifted in and out of awareness) that I had hurt no one but myself.

I had broken most of the bones in my body (just my arms remained intact) but I would probably recover. Over the next weeks a succession of doctors were to make prognoses about just how well I would walk -- I had shattered both legs -- but their verdicts varied. Frankly, at this stage, I was in too much pain to care.

Hospital was a blur of operations, sweaty heat and discomfort. The staff were all wonderful, but I look back on the six weeks I was there as being spent in one of the circles of hell. I couldn't eat, as my broken jaws were wired together -- I lived on instant soup, orange juice and ice cream. My wife brought me yoghurt drinks and milk-shakes, which she could ill-afford because I was now out of work.

But I was too wrapped up in my own misery to appreciate the sacrifices she made. Over the time I spent in hospital, I lost six stone, and dropped from an obese 18 stone to an unhealthy 12 stone.

I couldn't go to the toilet because they were afraid to move me, and I discovered that I have an insurmountable psychological barrier to going in a bottle while in bed. This became a huge problem, and finally the nurses lugged me to the bathroom twice a day, in the morning and just before lights out.

I could not sleep, and lay awake at night, too befuddled by pain medication to read. A friend brought me in some tapes and a walkman -- Bob Dylan's Desire album became a lifeline, something beautiful in a black pit of despair.

My family visited daily. I was cold and distant, all my energies focused on dealing with the wreckage my body had become. I was difficult and often hysterical with the nurses, and uncommunicative with everyone else. Finally I was allowed home again. I'd like to say that I immediately began to work feverishly on my recovery, but I did not. I wallowed in unhappiness. I sat in my wheelchair a bit and even pushed myself about the house, but I was far from self-sufficient and still relied hugely on my wife and children to tend to my basic care needs.

But two things caused me to snap out of the cycle of self-pity. The first motivation was my children. My daughter was barely two years old and my son was just into his teens. In a confused, and probably self-serving way, I felt I owed it to them to make a recovery. I was so miserable that doing it for myself was not even a consideration -- but becoming whole again for my kids was a definite driving force.

The second factor was our financial situation. The accident had left us on welfare and struggling desperately. My wife, who had taken time off work to be with the children, needed to return to employment as quickly as possible, and she could not do that until I was fit to be left on my own with a small child. So I began to exercise. I was dumbfounded at how weak I was. Simply getting from the bed to the wheelchair would leave me drenched in sweat and panting with the exertion.

But I persevered, and before long, with my daughter perched on my knee, or pottering along beside me, I would push myself along the footpath up to the local church, and back, a journey of about 200 yards.

I began to do chores around the house -- being wheelchair bound does not preclude you from hoovering, washing-up or cooking, and when my wife finally returned to work, I took to the role of a house-husband enthusiastically.

Strength returned gradually, but return it did. The knowledge that I would, eventually, walk, even with the aid of a stick, helped me to accept my lot without too much complaint.

I will admit that I did find the way people seemed to view me as strange. I had, for my entire adult life, been involved in working with people in crisis, many of whom had disabilities of one kind or another. Now, I was the disabled person, and that was a role I did not take to with great ease.

Suddenly, I was the invisible one, the person people in cafes would speak over, asking those I was with what I wanted to eat. Once, a gang of youths shouted across the street at me that I was a 'retard' and a 'spa'. I was more bemused than anything else -- I had, at this stage, taught at third level, and had several degrees to my name.

It seemed that, because I had a physical limitation, automatically I was also perceived as intellectually damaged in some way. Being in a wheelchair meant I was stupid.

Mid-July, six months after I had had my brush with death, I made my first tottering steps, using a walking frame. For the next month, I pushed myself upright, and stumped across our living room. By August, I was able to walk using a stick.

So where has my time as a disabled person left me? Well, I am approximately two-thirds the size I was when I drove my car into that truck. If I don't exercise regularly, my legs hurt, so even if I forget to run (or am too lazy) nagging aches and pains send me looking for my running shoes before more than a couple of days have gone past.

I have an abiding respect for people who live with disabilities. Having been there myself, I appreciate issues of accessibility and equality more than most.

And life is precious now. I know how easily, how unpredictably it can change. I realise now that I was living in a way that was irrevocably leading me to disaster. God, I often think, reached out and swatted me.

I am sorry my family had to be put through such trauma for me to learn these lessons, but the truth is that I am a better person for it.

- Shane Dunphy