Cool Crutches: A Business Born Out Of A Mother's Love
With Mother's Day approaching, I thought I’d take a moment to share the story behind the creation of Cool Crutches. It is, in fact, a crazy combination of a quad biking accident that left me partially paralysed and the love and support I received from my mum, Clare Braddell, that resulted in us growing this brilliant business together. Now, nearly 20 years later, we are proudly nurturing a community of over 150,000 people whilst creating and selling medically certified, beautifully designed, and comfortable mobility aids that are changing the lives of thousands of disabled people all over the world!
I had my accident in October 2005, when I was only 19 years old. A few friends and I were on a trip in Scotland when we decided to go quad biking. After having to make a split-second decision when my quad bike hit a pothole, I chose to jump off while it was moving, rather than go with it over the edge of a track down a long drop.
This decision may have saved my life but resulted in me smashing a vertebra in the middle of my back and causing permanent damage to my spinal cord. Instantly I had no feeling from the waist down and spent the next five months in hospital. I was solely reliant on my family for support and became very worried about my independence and how much pressure my disability would put on my parents.
It was terrifying not knowing whether I would be able to go to the bathroom on my own, let alone move, live, travel, or work—everything about the future was by no means guaranteed, and that in itself was very scary. The winter of 2005 was a dark one and truly shook my whole family unit to the core, but what followed was resoundingly positive, and my mum played a huge part in that.
After multiple surgeries to reconstruct my spine, I was finally given the green light to learn to walk again with the help of crutches. This felt like the first bit of good news that I’d had since my accident. At the time, it seemed like all the doctors and nurses wanted to discuss was what I wouldn’t be able to do again, what was going to be different about my life now, and what I needed to prepare for. When I was told I would be able to learn to walk with crutches, I was over the moon; however, this quickly became a new addition to a long list of things I 'couldn't' do.
Due to the severity of my injury, the NHS crutches just caused me an immense amount of pain. They simply weren't designed for the amount of support I needed so my hands were covered in blisters, the blisters began to get infected, and it became impossible for me to use them. This is when the doctors advised me to go back on bed rest, then get a wheelchair, 'get my head round it and get on with it’.
I can't lie it was hard, hearing I couldn't even try to learn to walk was awful and I started to panic. This is when Mum stepped in and fought for a different answer. She was the one who saw it wasn’t me, my body, or my mind that wasn’t able to walk again; it was the mobility aids I'd been given. She instantly knew if we could source something better, then not only could it be the answer for me, but possibly hundreds—maybe thousands—of others who were experiencing the same problem.
Mum saw a wider need and an opportunity for us to have something to focus on that was positive. It was now about change and what could happen rather than what couldn’t. We knew that if we could create crutches that didn’t cause pain and blisters, that were designed for long-term use so they didn’t click, slip or snap, then we could really change the future for me, and so many others.
Desperate to find a solution, Mum began to search all corners of the globe to see what was out there. She looked into mobility aids in the UK, Europe, the US, and even Asia to see if anything similar existed. She went to medical conferences and trade shows and couldn’t find anything that ticked all the boxes.
They were either colourful but not medically certified, or designed with brilliant functionality but enormous and hideous to look at. Alongside this, we were dealing with the constant phone calls and questions about my future. Would I be able to live alone? Would I be able to date? Have a relationship? Would I regain the feeling in my feet? It was this heavy reminder of the hope that I once had, that I may never have again. Mum realised that starting Cool Crutches would give us both a focus and a distraction at a time we needed it most. It was her drive to build crutches designed with disability in mind that was the best medicine I could have asked for. Not only did our better designed mobility aids give me back the independence I lost, but it laid the foundation of a business that has gone on to give me purpose, confidence, and a community of over 150,000 people that I am privileged to talk to, work with, and support every day.
It hasn’t been easy, and both Mum and I have had to learn, grow, and adapt a lot to make this work. Being a mum and daughter duo has led to us being underestimated. We’ve had to deal with plenty of assumptions that we wouldn’t make a success of it and that I wouldn’t be able to cope with being a founder because of my disability. Fortunately, we’ve always supported each other, even on the hardest days. We approach things differently and both have different skill sets. There have definitely been things we have done that haven’t always been the other person's favourite, but we’ve always had the space to be honest with one another and confidently push back when needed, as well as understand empathetically and champion one another too.
Cool Crutches started with a mother just wanting to help her child, and it has resulted in a business that is helping disabled people across the world improve their quality of life every day. It is offering people who have been diagnosed with a chronic illness, had an accident, lost a limb, or live with an injury—a lifeline. Comfortable, sturdy, medically certified, and BEAUTIFUL crutches and walking sticks are life-changing for people, like me. My mum and her determination to fight for me and my health are the reason you, I, and thousands of others are walking around without blisters on our hands or pain in our shoulders. My life would look very different if it weren't for my mum's unconditional love and support, and I am incredibly grateful to her for standing by my side through thick and thin.
I hope you enjoyed reading a bit about me, my mum Clare and the story of Cool Crutches. I think it’s important to not only acknowledge the disabled mothers out there giving their children the best possible life, but also the behind-the-scenes mums that support us through all our health struggles and fight for us on the days we can’t fight for ourselves.
Happy Mother's Day everyone,
Amelia x
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