A gym instructor who suffered serious spinal cord injuries during an obstacle course race has described the moment he realised he could not move and was drowning in a shallow pool of muddy water.

Andrea Calleja, 31, was left almost completely paralysed after taking part in The Grid challenge in Għajn Tuffieħa, last October, and has been undergoing rehabilitation in hospital ever since.

Speaking for the first time about the incident and his road to recovery, Andrea told Times of Malta that he was seconds away from death.

“I began to swallow water mixed with mud as my body refused to budge. I was like a starfish in the water, and I was literally drowning,” he said.

“I remember thinking to myself: ‘Oh God, please don’t let me go like this. Don’t let me die drowning’.”

Andrea had been competing in the popular race with his girlfriend, Karen Vella, and the couple had almost reached the end of the competition.

“We were very close to finishing the challenge together. We could literally see the finish line,” he said.

As they always do during obstacle course races, Karen was running in front, leading her team. Andrea always ran at the back, behind the others, to make sure everyone in the team had passed safely through each obstacle and nobody was left behind.

“I looked behind me and saw Andrea at the back, signalling that everything was fine,” Karen recalled, explaining that looking at each other and signalling was their way of telling each other that everyone was safe and that she could forge ahead on the front line.

They were at the penultimate obstacle, where participants had to climb up a net and slide down an inflatable slide which led into a pool of muddy water. Most of the team had gone up and down the slide and were moving to the final obstacle, and only Andrea and four other team-mates were yet to come down the slide.

“The marshal at the top of the slide told us only four people could go down the slide simultaneously, so I offered to slide down alone, before them, and I slid down head first,” Andrea said.

'People were oblivious to my peril'

“I hit my head at the bottom but remained conscious. I tried to get up and couldn’t. I was thinking about getting up and I wanted to do it, but my body wouldn’t move.”

It was at that stage that he began to swallow water.  The situation was even worse because people around him did not immediately realise that he was in distress.

“I could understand that people were oblivious to my peril, because I could hear them and I could hear that there was no panic in the air,” he said.

But a cameraman who was covering the event realised what had happened, abandoned his equipment, rushed to Andrea and got him out of the water just in time.

“Doctors afterwards told us that Andrea would have died in a matter of a few seconds, because the water was dirty, and he was swallowing too much of it,” Karen said.

'Seconds away from dying'

“They said that he was literally seconds away from dying.”

Andrea adds: “He saved my life. There is no way I can thank him enough for what he did.”

Since then the once-energetic sportsman has been focusing on trying to regain movement in his body.

The accident severely damaged his spinal cord at the base of his neck, essentially paralysing him from below his shoulders.

But with the help of occupational therapists from Karin Grech and Mater Dei hospitals, he has been able to regain most of the movement of his right arm and can use some abdominal muscles.

Andrea is now on the slow path to recovery. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

It is an arduously slow process, and he is not sure he will ever walk again, but he is determined to do what he can to reach that goal, and his girlfriend of three years stands by him, trying to live a normal life for both of them.

She says every little improvement is a celebration. Sometimes he just manages to move his hand a few more centimetres, and sometimes, he simply feels a light flicker in his muscle, but Karen says every little improvement is a celebration.

Andrea and his girlfriend Karen. Photo: Matthew Mirabelli

'We're working towards normality'

“It’s hard, but whenever we’re together, it feels like life is normal again,” she said from her boyfriend’s room at Karin Grech hospital.

“We haven’t changed any of our plans. We are working on our house and we’re working towards normality.”

The couple run Karen’s gym in Żabbar but Andrea also worked as a tied insurance intermediary at LifeStar insurance.

He has received a lot of support from his co-workers, who, during a staff party at the end of the year raised money to help him get more intense treatment in specialised rehabilitation centres abroad.

When he learned about the accident, LifeStar chairman Paolo Catalfamo, who was himself Italy’s 800-metre champion for under-18s, took a personal interest.

He immediately told the team he would personally triple the amount raised – before he knew how much would be raised.

 “Andrea is one of us and at LifeStar we value the importance of helping one another,” Catalfamo said.

“This horrible accident could have easily happened to anyone, and I was very touched by his refusal to give up, and his determination to seek solutions to fight his situation and regain independence.

“We want Andrea to know we’re four square behind him.”

Thanks to LifeStar’s efforts, a total of €6,723 was collected for Andrea, and people can still donate on the Facebook page Andrea Calleja Fundraising.

A spokesperson for The Grid said that while it wished Andrea a "speedy recovery", the event was organised "in strict conformity with all health and safety regulations currently in force".

A magisterial inquiry is ongoing.