My brain was like mashed potato after a terrible car accident - but listening to Coldplay helps me remember who I am

Ed Buckley, 22, was hit by a speeding taxi in 2012 and went into a coma

Six months later he woke up, unable to walk, talk or remember his name

However, from his wheelchair, he could still play Coldplay on the piano

Nearly a year-and-a-half later, Ed has regained almost all his lost abilites



For any music fan, meeting their idol is likely to be emotional. But for Ed Buckley, standing side by side with Coldplay singer Chris Martin at a glamorous awards ceremony in London earlier this year was an extremely poignant moment in a long and remarkable journey.

Just 17 months earlier, the Leeds University undergraduate, who was training to be a pilot, had been all but written off by doctors after being struck by a speeding taxi as he walked home from a party.

His injuries were so profound that he was in a coma for six months, at first suffering life-threatening seizures. His distraught parents were told on a number of occasions to prepare for the worst.

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Dream come true: Ed, who is now able to walk and talk and play the piano again, 17 months after his accident, got to meet his inspiration, Coldplay's Chris Martin, at the O2 Silver Clef Awards in June

Against the odds, Ed pulled through but when he woke, he was unable to speak, walk or carry out even the most basic tasks. The brain damage he suffered also left him with profound memory loss.

So it is nothing short of astonishing that today he has recovered all of his faculties – and even manages to crack wry jokes about how it is his parents, rather than him, who struggle to remember details of the past, and that the inside of his head is still ‘like mashed potato’.

But more interestingly, Ed, 22, credits his return to health partly to a pioneering form of music therapy that is showing huge promise and is helping those like him recover their memories. Listening to Coldplay, one of his favourite bands, was key to the process.

Ddespite being wheelchair-bound and in ‘a fog’ that meant he could barely recall his own name, when Ed sat at a piano, he could play the chords to Coldplay songs which he had learned during music lessons before the accident.

He explains: ‘Before I could walk or talk, and while I was still in a wheelchair, I could be pushed up to the piano and I would bang out Let It Be by The Beatles. I remembered the chords for that, but I had no other memory.

Family ties: Ed is surrounded by his sisters Emily, far left, Amy, centre, and Alice after emerging from his coma, six months after the accident

‘Then I started to remember the Coldplay stuff I used to play. Music makes me feel different because I spend most of the week concentrating on walking better and thinking better. When I put my fingers on the keys, I just let it go and concentrate on other stuff. That’s what unlocked my brain.’

He laughs again, describing how Barry Manilow reminds him of his mother Caroline, Dire Straits of his father Matthew, and One Direction of his younger sister Amy.

On hearing Ed’s story, Coldplay frontman Martin and the band’s lead guitarist Jonny Buckland offered to personally present him with the handwritten signed lyrics to their chart-topping 2011 single Paradise, at the O2 Silver Clef Awards in June.

The fundraising gala is hosted each year by charity Nordoff Robbins , which provides music therapy to patients with a range of illnesses and needs.

Martin was moved to tears by Ed’s plight. ‘Hearing his story and meeting him was amazing. It was so moving and so powerful,’ he says.

REPAIRING THE DAMAGE WITH ART AND A SONG

The brain comprises billions of nerve cells called neurons. These transmit chemical signals to each other and control every aspect of our bodies. Few cells are added after birth, but existing neurons grow larger and connect with one another in response to external stimulus. This is how we learn. When the brain tissue is injured, cells die and these neural pathways can be broken. Physiotherapy, speech therapy, art therapy and even social interaction can help the pathways regrow. They work by either retraining muscles, stimulating mental processes or finding alternative ways of communicating or moving. Music can recruit new areas of the brain if one part of the network is damaged. Making music uses a huge range of mental functions: memory, sequencing, organising, co-ordinating and movement. Even singing means that memory of speech is stimulated, hormone levels are increased, the heart rate can change and the immune system is boosted.

‘He’s just a good guy and hearing what he’s been through and is still going through, puts things into perspective. It makes everything we do feel worthwhile.’

On stage, Caroline, a 48-year-old nurse, told of the extraordinary power of music therapy, and the role that Nordoff Robbins therapist Jessica Atkinson played in her son’s rehabilitation.

Experts believe that listening to and playing music, which involves a complex combination of mental processes including perception and memory, can effectively be used to retrain and re-educate the injured brain.

Ed is a striking example of the rehabilitative effect. Three months after his accident, and still in coma, he was transferred from a hospital in Leeds to Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge, then on to Northwick Park Hospital in Middlesex to be nearer his family home in Welwyn Garden City.

Then, six months to the day after his accident, he began to wake up. Still in a minimally conscious state, he began an intensive course of rehabilitation, incorporating physiotherapy and speech, occupational and music therapies.

Atkinson, a former professional violinist and music teacher, has worked as a Nordoff Robbins music therapist for 15 years in hospices, special needs schools, care homes and now at Northwick Park.

She explains how, like many male brain-injury patients, Ed struggled to speak, at first saying the few words he could manage in either a high-pitched whine or flat monotone.

‘I used the piano and my own voice to make a range of noise combinations, which Ed would attempt to mimic,’ she explains.



‘We would begin a musical question-and-answer session where we would try to get him to reregister his voice, then guide him through many chords. You would make a harmony, taking him up and down, so he would regain the inflection in his voice, both for speaking and singing.’

Remarkably, and it is not yet fully understood why, many patients with brain injuries retain the ability to sing even when their normal speech is quite affected, so Atkinson tried to harness the melody of his unimpaired song and attach it to Ed’s speech.

She began by freely improvising conversation in song, so that Ed wasn’t concentrating on the meaning of his words but the melodic framework of the delivery. ‘As soon as we went into a conversation about something he had to give some thought to, and he focused on the meaning, he would drop out of melodic conversation and revert to monotone,’ she explains.

Inspiration: Coldplay's music played a crucial part in Ed's rehabilitation after the accident

However, using Atkinson’s strategy, Ed was able to go away and practise melodic chat on his own, taking the initiative in his own rehabilitation.

When he was ready to come out of his wheelchair, Atkinson – working alongside physio- and occupational therapists – used a drum to help Ed regain a natural walking rhythm that gave him balance and momentum. The simple effect of a marching beat gives the body a natural cadence to mirror.

She also dovetailed with other members of the clinical team to work on improving Ed’s finger control, using the piano keys as a tool.

As a child, Ed showed a talent for music, reaching grade four on the piano, before abandoning formal lessons to enjoy playing by ear. He was eager to experience this liberating sensation again and with Atkinson’s help, he would go home on weekend leave from the hospital and come back having learned to play a new piece of music. He even attempted to sing along, too.

‘Ed would challenge himself by choosing the most difficult chords, but he had the most incredible determination and could sense the way the process of playing again was affecting his whole life,’ recalls Atkinson.

Caroline says it also allowed Ed to give something back to the people around him. ‘He has pushed himself constantly and responded to music in a truly incredible, inspirational way.

‘It normalises him – all youngsters have music as part of their life. They may play in bands or they bond with others because of their musical tastes.’

Ed continues to use music to put memories into context and to help him recall situations and people in his life. It is a recognised strategy that many therapists use to help patients reassemble the jigsaw puzzle of their life.

Music has become a focal point of Ed’s ongoing recovery and, although he stopped working with Atkinson when he was discharged from hospital in April, he now has piano lessons and singing lessons at home. ‘If I am improving in walking, that doesn’t matter to me as much as improving my piano. I want to serenade the ladies like Jamie Cullum. He has it all – he is handsome and he has talent,’ he laughs.

When he first woke from his coma, Ed had two goals. One of them was fulfilled last month when he celebrated his 22nd birthday by playing beach cricket with his parents, sisters – Emily, 23, Amy, 19, and 18-year-old Alice – and friends during a holiday on Alderney.

His second goal is to fulfil a request from his mother – to play A Million Love Songs by Take That. It is something he is working towards every day.

‘It’s the lyrics,’ he says, whispering in my ear. ‘She gets really soppy when she hears the lyrics.’