The Accident That Changed the Rest of His Life | Know Your Money | Episode 183

He survives a horrific highway collision, climbs out from under a truck, and walks away with nothing but stitches and a scar. That’s where Justin’s story starts, and it’s why this conversation stays with you long after you stop listening.

We talk with Justin about the night drive from Johannesburg to Howick that turns catastrophic on the N3, and the heavy reality that another family is killed moments later. From there, the story shifts to the uncomfortable question many survivors carry: why didn’t it happen to me? Justin shares how that search for meaning eventually reshapes his career as a biokineticist, moving from chasing high-profile sport to working with people living with brain injuries, stroke, and spinal cord injury in a rehabilitation setting. It’s an honest look at purpose, dignity, and how quickly life can change.

Then we follow the thread into adaptive sport and community impact. Justin tells us about Gabriel, a young man in a wheelchair who demands a goal big enough to live for, and the handcycle challenges that follow. When batteries fail and plans fall apart, a simple tow rope, teamwork, and stubborn grit get people to the finish line. The full-circle moment comes with Wiseman’s 947 ride, where Gabriel tows him for 53km, turning inspiration into action and proving how goals can rebuild identity after trauma.

If you care about purpose-driven work, disability rehabilitation, resilience, and the real-life side of planning for the unexpected, you’ll get a lot from this one. Subscribe to Know Your Money, share this episode with someone who needs hope, and leave us a review with your biggest takeaway.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_04 0:12

Hello everybody, welcome to Know Your Money. I'm Bronwyn Wayner.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

And I'm Craig Finch, and we are from Growth Financial Planning. We hope you enjoy our podcast.

SPEAKER_04 0:22

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Know Your Money. Justin, thank you so much for coming here. And Craig, hello again.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Hello Bronman. Thanks for having me. Good to see you again.

SPEAKER_04 0:31

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 0:32

Making it a habit. Yes.

The Night Of The N3 Crash

SPEAKER_04 0:36

So, Justin, you have a day in your life that was absolutely ordinary and it changed into something extraordinary from what you experienced. Do you want to maybe just share that and how that's changed your life or given the direction to where you are with your career and your business?

SPEAKER_00 0:58

So I was it was definitely a very ordinary day, and and I think the key point there is I was 24 years old.

SPEAKER_04 1:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Um average 24-year-old guy.

SPEAKER_04 1:11

Married, not married.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Not married. I was going out with my wife. Okay. We weren't married yet. And I had spent a weekend up in Joburg to visit my family. I know the day exactly. It was the 6th of August. And uh had a lovely stay, and I was heading back to Howick where I was doing my internship. I got in the car, drove home. I left quite late. It's only a four-hour drive, four and a half hour drive to Hawick. And I left Joburg probably a little too late because it was going to drive in the dark. But you know, you're young, you're strong, you've got great eyesight, everything's going to go well. And I went past the through the Vol Plaza. And it was at the stage before the trucks had Chevron coaching on the side of the on the side of the trailers. And I was driving, I wasn't breaking the speed limits. I was 120 kilometers an hour, the sun had just set, and I saw the truck facing me correctly in the fast lane on the opposite traffic. And then when I was less than 100 meters away, going at 120 kilometers away, I saw that the trailer was across the other two lanes of traffic which I was driving in. And in a split second, uh, it's true, you see your life flash through your eyes. Uh I thought it was all over. Uh had a few expletives come out of my mouth. Um, but I was extremely calm, which was quite unusual. Uh, and uh literally a few seconds later, I woke up underneath the truck. And uh I know it was a few seconds later because when I started opening my door, which I couldn't open on the driver's side, I crawled through the passenger side. Um, the driver hadn't got out the his cockpit yet. And I was outside and I approached the driver. He approached me, asked if I was okay, and I was like, yeah, no, I'm fine. I looked at the car and I said, dude, we we need to put my hazards on as quickly as possible because someone else is going to hit this vehicle. And uh I climbed back in the car and saw that there was no more car. Literally, how I crawled out is a miracle in itself. But my whole car was squashed, the battery, the engine was smashed. Uh and literally I've got a big scar on the side of my neck here, and that's where a piece of metal from the truck caught me. And that was the only damage that I have to my whole body. I had 12 stitches in my neck. But I got out and then I am a bit queasy, and I went like this, and I saw the blood, and I was like, oh, I'm bleeding. And then said, I need to sit down. So I walked off the highway, off the N3, sat in the in the bushes, and uh moments later I heard the horrible sound of screeching brakes as another car hit from the other side, and uh that family wasn't as lucky as me. The entire family was decapitated. Um I said, yeah, so the whole family was decapitated. Um, I was lucky line now. I think shock was starting to set in. I had phoned home. Uh I told my wife or girlfriend then, Shalen or Minnie, and my mum and dad, I got two phone calls in before my battery was flat, typical students, you don't have your battery at full whole thing. And I said, Don't worry, I'm fine, but I've been in an accident. Um, and this is probably where I'm gonna go, Heidelberg hospital. And

Surviving And Searching For Purpose

SPEAKER_00 4:18

um, I think at that stage, a pivotal moment in my life, I didn't know what the reason was. You often have, um, they call it the opposite to why me. So some people say, Why do bad things happen to me? But there's another syndrome where I was in a bad situation. Why didn't something bad happen to me? Yeah, so I suffered from that from a little bit. You start questioning, you know, what's my purpose and stuff like that. And you it wore off. After a couple of years, it wore off. And then it literally, so that happened in 2001. Literally in 2020, sometime 2023, I suddenly realized I think I know why that happened. So at that stage it happened, I was starting to be a biokineticist. I am a biokineticist, and I I always wanted to work with high-profile sports teams, the clean, the glory stuff, the nice stuff. But my path put me on a trajectory where I started falling in love with working with physically disabled people, people who had sustained head injuries, stroke, spinal cord injury. And

A Career Turn Towards Rehabilitation

SPEAKER_00 5:18

the moment I walked into the place when I changed my career path in England, I realized I looked across the room and I realized I could have been one of these guys.

unknown 5:26

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Any one of these people in this room.

SPEAKER_04 5:28

What year was that when you were in the UK?

SPEAKER_00 5:30

So my story is slightly disjointed, yeah. So in 2001 I had the accident. In 2003, I was in the UK and I was trying to look for this high-profile career. I actually, I didn't work with David Beckham, but my company worked with David Beckham, and I was like, that's the stuff I want to do. I want to be with the footballers and stuff. And I don't want to get too spiritual because it's not really a spiritual podcast, but God had a different route for me. And he I landed up at a brain injury unit applying for a job that wasn't for me. I was working as a rehabilitation assistant, sorry specialist. That was my title in England, and I saw a job advertised for a rehabilitation assistant. I went and applied for it. This is also interesting about the story. I went to apply for it, and the lady says to me, Sorry, um, Justin, your CV looks good, but you know what a rehabilitation assistant is. And I said, No, I don't. She said, Well, this is a brain injury place. And I said, Oh, I didn't know that. So she said, Well, you would be required to be a male nurse. So you're going to help feed our guys, you're going to clean the nappies of the adults, and you're going to be a male nurse. And I said, Yeah, that's not really what I wanted to do, but I do have some experience. So my grandparents grew old, I watched them grow old and I helped them walk a little bit. That would be the basis of my experience. And she said, Yeah, so this is not really the job for you, but I'm going to send your CV down to the medical department. So I was like, Okay, you know, see, let's see what happens. I barely got home, my phone rang. They wanted to interview me for a job that I didn't apply for. And the the guy who interviewed me, his name was Ted LeBrock, and the cool part of the story is he was Princess Dye's physiotherapist.

SPEAKER_03 7:04

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

And uh we get talking, and by the end of the conversation, he says, We've never had one of you, meaning a biokineticist, work for us. I think we'd like to try it out. And I got a job working with brain injured people.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

And that's the moment I realized that I could have been any one of these guys. And one of our previous and your purpose. Yeah, it suddenly had purpose. And Craig alluded to, you know, um how quickly it can happen and how how you treat individuals who have had injuries. I think at that moment I realized how would I like to be treated? Because now I could have been in that wheelchair.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

And so everything just fell into place and a passion developed inside me. And then, as we said in the previous episode, um, we we developed TNT, and I realized that some people need money to do this, and we developed TNT. And so, from from an ordinary day leaving home, an extraordinary something happened which put my life on an extraordinary trajectory that I never imagined. And it didn't all happen at once. There were moments when you see the puzzles fitting together. This happened there, this happened there, and purpose became evident. And uh that leads me on to another story where sometimes you go through life, and sometimes only when the circle's completed, and you look back and you're like, hey, there's a thread, there's a thread right through the story. And uh in 2018,

Gabriel’s Handcycle Challenge And Inspiration

SPEAKER_00 8:33

I met a guy by the name of Gabriel, and Gabriel was a youngster who we're gonna stick with the theme of an ordinary day. He went out to do motocross, and uh he hit a jump and the bike landed skew and he broke his back. And a young early 20s man, all of a sudden life was dashed, and now he's in a wheelchair. And he met me shortly after I completed a Cape Epic, and he said to me, He said, Justin, I'm gonna I'm in a wheelchair, but I can't live in a wheelchair, I need purpose. Let's do a crazy event. So I said, Cool. He said, I said, we'll do the Joberg to see, which is a a cycle race, a mountain bike race from Frankfurt, no, from Heidelberg, all the way to um to Scottsborough. It's 900 kilometres of mountain biking over nine days, and he was going to do it in an assisted hand cycle. So it's an e-bike, and he was gonna be the first man in the world to complete an event like that. So we we trained for it, we got to the start. So we didn't get to start, COVID happened, they postponed the event. In 2022, we got to the event and uh we started the event, and it was just you know, this whole hype hand cycle on this event, so every cyclist goes past us, and about day two, Gabriel becomes quite a celebrity because yeah, he's ground level just grinding away. But that year was the start of this whole weird stuff where we got so much rain in South Africa, and literally the whole route through the free state was mud, and we had to go from Raits to Stack Fontaine, and the rain poured extra hard that day. So, what would have been 120 kilometers, and probably we would have averaged close to 20 kilometers an hour. So six-hour day became a nine, ten hour day in the cycle. And uh, because it's an e-bike, it works on um batteries, and we had planned everything, but the mud child the batteries a little bit faster than they should have. So we we got to seven kilometers to go, and it's on the stackman Saint Dan Wall, the mud's extra thick, and Gabriel's batteries run out. That bike's heavy, it's almost impossible to hand cycle without battery assistance. So, purely by luck, there's a medical tent just ahead of us. So I cycle up to medical attents, and I say, Do you guys by any chance have a rope for us? And uh they know us now because they've been following the routes. I say, Yeah, sure, just give it back to us later tonight in case we need it, and we need it for our inventory. So Karen and myself tie the rope onto Gabriel's bike, and we literally take turns. So Gabriel's assisting, but we take turns to tow him home for the last seven kilometers. A standing ovation. Gabriel gets a hero's welcome as we come in as the sun's setting over the stake fontain, and it's a real special moment. So that that in itself had repercussions that we only found out later. And uh, you would be going for a cycle a year or two later in the cradle, and someone would come say to Gabriel, you were the guy who inspired me to finish that race. When I saw you finish on that day, I was like, what are my excuses? I finished the race. So and we hear often of those stories of that day that Gabriel finished the toughest day. And then, but little did I know what an impact that story would have later on. So Trojan Zeroological Trust took on another beneficiary, a guy by the name of Wiseman. Also a young man, he was helping his family out one day and he had an accident falling off a ladder and he broke his back in mid-spine. And once again, we set out, like we said

Wiseman’s 947 Tow And Full Circle

SPEAKER_00 12:05

in the previous episode, we'd like to give the guys goals. And Wiseman asked him if he would like to do the 94-7 one day. And he said he would love to. Um, we were donated a hand cycle, it's very similar to Gabriel's. And uh Wiseman says to me, He says, Am I gonna be riding with Gabriel? I said, Yeah, you're gonna be riding with Gabriel, and he's just this massive smile. He says, Gabriel's has inspired me since my injury. I've been watching his recovery. He's like my hero. I'm gonna be riding with Gabriel, and Wiseman is now pumped. I mean, he's he was a boxer anyway, so he's got guns like this. And he's so excited that he's gonna be doing the 947.

SPEAKER_03 12:37

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

And uh last year we get to the 947, and um the Trojans Geological Trust big packed our biggest amount ever. We got three hands, four-hand cyclists, and we're doing this event, and it's literally Wiseman's second time on the bike because we've just got everything fixed up. And we reach Witz, which is only 20 Ks into the right, and Wiseman's first battery's flat. So now we're joking with them because we don't take this that seriously at the moment. Gabriel says, Listen, Wiseman, I don't do this thing just on the battery power. You need to actually move your arms. You can't just be so they have some banter, they laugh at each other, and then Gabriel says, I'm gonna stick with you and I want to teach you how to use this properly so the batteries can last. So we had three batteries, we're down one battery. We get to Kalami, which is roughly 40 K's in the second battery's flat, and we're on what would be um the mineshaft, but we're going up the mine shaft, I pull, I pull Gabriel and Wiseman to the side. We're trying to touch the third battery, and unfortunately, the third battery doesn't work.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

So we're faced with a massive issue now. We're not even at halfway, we're just the side of halfway. It's Wiseman's second time on a bike, and uh he's not gonna finish it. There's no way he can do this without batteries. So I, in retrospect, was silly, and I and I look, I look at Wiseman and I get on my phone, and Gabriel looks at me and says, Why are you who are you phoning and why are you phoning? So I said, and I'm phoning my assistant, Caitlin, to bring a bucky. So we can load Wiseman's bike into the bucket, he can take him to the finish line. You know, maybe we pull him out a kilometre from the end and he can come in with a TNT train. And Gabriel looks at me and he says, Dude, are you mad? And um I say, you know why? He says, Remember what you guys did for me in 22. So I uh I recall the event where we towed him. So I say, yeah, so I remember. So Gabriel says, Well, we're gonna We hit it towise man in. So I shake my head, I look at Gabriel's and I say, What do you mean we towing Wiseman in? So he says, No. Coincidentally, I bought a tow rope. And he says, That rope you bought, we're gonna use it. We're telling you I said, Gabriel's 53 kilometers to the finish. Yeah, it's 947. And Gabriel says, I'm towing him in. And uh we we hooked the two up, and uh Gabriel proceeded to tow Wiseman to the finish of the race. And um you guys finished? We finished, we were safe towed by his hero every time there was a downhill, we unhitched them because they would be too dangerous because they were they come down flying. I mean, those guys who pick up rubbish and go down the William Nicholson stuff, there would be a similar situation. And uh we finished in six hours to an absolute stand innovation. Um the crowd

Final Reflections And How To Subscribe

SPEAKER_00 15:42

was there, and uh as you as you as you said, Brian, the wiseman was towed by his hero, and for me it was just amazing to see the complete loop. Yeah, yeah, incredible, just yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:55

No, it's absolutely incredible, and just the power of goals and the power of teamwork and the power of like a hero, you know. A hero changes your life, if and it's so important to focus on that. And you are a hero to so many people in what you do, and we need more people like this in the world, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Yeah, brilliant, Just. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_04 16:19

Uh thank you, Justin.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Keep on doing the work, we know. Great, thank you. Thank you for having me to share these stories. And we'll have you again. There's many more stories we can tell. Just thanks so much. Appreciate it, appreciate your time, everything. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for having me, guys.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Bye. Thank you for listening. If you have enjoyed this podcast, would like to subscribe, please visit our website www.growthfp.co.za. The information we have provided in this podcast is our personal opinion. For more detailed information, please discuss your financial situation with a financial planner.