BETTER NEVER
STOPS.
In 2012, on the journey home from Bestival music festival, Zach Washington-Young became the most severely injured survivor of a devastating coach crash. His spine was shattered, broken in two places, and his spinal cord was severed, leaving him paralysed from the waist down. Medical experts were unequivocal in their prognosis. One lead consultant even told him, “If you walk again, I will eat my tie.” At that moment, the future Zach had imagined was gone.
What followed was not a sudden comeback, but years of relentless effort and belief. In 2018, six years after being told he would never walk again, Zach became the first person to complete the London Marathon with a severed spine. In 2020, he summited Mount Snowdon. By 2021, his recovery had carried him into elite para-sport, where he went on to compete for Team GB as a professional swimmer. Each achievement was not a finish line, but a decision to keep going, even when progress was slow and the path uncertain.
Today, Zach is walking again and continues to improve every day. But his story is not about what was lost. It is about what can be rebuilt: strength, independence, identity and purpose. What Zach represents is not short-term inspiration, but long-term belief. Proof that progress is possible, even when the path forward is unclear.
Zach representing Team GB.