Uriah Rennie, 65, was hospitalised for five months after a rare condition left him paralysed from the waist down. Once described as the “fittest” match official in global football and a martial arts expert, he is now learning to walk again.
Rennie spent five months in a spinal unit and has to learn how to walk again. Officially starts as university chancellor in May, a position he has been determined to take up despite his recent experiences.
“I’m aiming to be the best I can physically,” he says. “No one has told me I won’t walk again, but even if someone did say that I want to be able to say I did everything I could to try.”
Rennie moved from Jamaica to the UK as a young child and grew up in the Wybourn area of the city. Discussing his latest challenge, he says the spinal cord compression has given him a new outlook on life.
“Lots of people are in wheelchairs, but it doesn’t define them,” he says. “It has made me resilient and forceful and I will never give up – I’m not on my own, there is a village helping me.”
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