Long-distance runner’s astonishing recovery after being told by doctors he may never race again

WHEN runner Ewan Dudding suffered severe burns in a moped crash on holiday, he feared his racing days were over.

But after a two-year recovery battle, Ewan, 20, has amazed doctors and started competitive running again.

In July 2015, after excelling in his sixth year at school, the 18-year-old from Argyll and Bute, jetted off to Malia, Crete, for some post-exam stress relief and a month in the sun.

But catastrophe struck when he crashed his rented moped.

The last thing Ewan remembered was driving back to his flat – in the holiday resort’s quieter “old town” – and then nothing.

He woke up in a bloodied hospital bed, wrapped in bandages with a brace around his neck and tubes protruding from his nostrils.

“But that wasn’t what scared me the most,” Ewan said.

“The first thing I did was pull the sheet away from my legs to make sure they were still there. I couldn’t feel them and I panicked.

“I had no idea where I was and I couldn’t remember a thing. My face was numb and it was starting to get sore. I couldn’t breathe out of my nose but I just wanted out of there.”

Ewan had smashed his moped into a brick wall – just 100 metres from his hotel – at 30mph with no helmet.

Holidaymakers who were enjoying a drink on their balcony saw the crash and immediately called an ambulance.

When the emergency services arrived Ewan was unconscious and his legs were trapped under the scooter.

The scalding hot exhaust pipe had melted the skin above his right ankle.

He suffered a third degree burn, a broken nose and jaw, and a fractured eye socket.

While the injuries to his face healed up in a matter of months, the problems with his leg persisted.

He needed skin graft surgery and months of physiotherapy to build back his strength, but Ewan was impatient. He was one of the fastest teenagers in the west of Scotland before his accident, winning first place at 10km and 5km regional cross-country races between 2013 and 2015, and his talent was noticed.

He was asked to train with Central Athletic Club in Stirling as they knew Ewan was set on moving to the city to study for a degree in sports science.

The club has trained the likes of 5000 metre Olympic 2016 finalist Andrew Butchart and Commonwealth Games athletes Ross Houston, Alastair Hay and Morag MacLarty, as well as other Scottish champions.

Ewan was told to ease himself back into light jogging but his keenness got the better of him.

Immediately after healing from surgery he ignored medical advice and started timing his runs again, but he was hit with another devastating setback.

Ewan said: “I began experiencing extreme fatigue in my left leg, which is my good leg that wasn’t injured, to the point where it stopped me running again very quickly.”

His stronger leg was overcompensating for the damaged one that had been out of use for so long.

It looked doubtful that he’d ever compete again.

Physios and doctors told him not to get his hopes up. But this month, against the odds, Ewan competed in a race for the first time since the crash, finishing third in the Dunoon 10k in Argyll and Bute.

Ewan found his love for running through trying to lose weight.

At 15, he transitioned from a self-confessed, out-of-shape teenager to one of the fastest distance runners in Scotland.

“I began running to lose weight and get fit because I was always heavier when I was younger.

“I fell in love with it. I found myself running every single night then I started challenging myself and timing myself.”

Ewan immersed himself in the world of distance running, earning a reputation in his hometown Lochgilphead as being “the guy in the shorts always running”.

Ewan and his mum would regularly sit together and watch Mo Farah’s races — with his mum taping it for him if he was unable to watch it live.

Ewan felt a sense of emptiness without racing in his life, but he’s optimistic about the future.

He said: “I’m just so glad to be back competing. I don’t want to jinx it but this could be me injury-free now.

“I just can’t wait to start training with Central Athletics. It’s been torture living and studying in Stirling and not being able to run with them.”

Ewan may yet realise his childhood dream of competing at the Olympics. He said: “I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I want to take it one step at a time… literally.

“But you never know.”

Ewan’s physiotherapist Morag Fraser, from the Framework Clinics in Bridge of Allan, said: “I can see why previous physios and doctors told him he might never race at a high level again. The burnt scar tissue around his Achilles heel was tight and affecting his running. In order to run at pace there needs to be elasticity in the ankle.

“But I think Ewan, being the athlete he is, became more and more determined every time he was told he couldn’t do something.”