Gabe finds new path in life after gun accident

Lifestyle –  Gabe Cronnelly tells Francis Kennedy about embracing new future after leg amputation

While most people will not be able to remember specific events from Christmas 2009 more than any other Christmas period, the date of December 28 that year is etched in the memory of Athenry man Gabe Cronnelly forever. At 8 00am on the morning of December 28 that year, an accidental blast from a friend’s shotgun changed his life.

On a fresh December morning, Gabe and a friend, both keen gun-club members had arranged to travel to Glenaslat, near Monivea, to do some shooting.

As they walked back to their jeep, a shotgun blast shattered the silence and Gabe lay on the ground in severe pain, bleeding profusely from a massive wound to his right knee. Though lapsing in and out of consciousness, he had the discipline and presence of mind to stem the flow of blood by making a makeshift tourniquet from his cartridge belt.

Two passers-by came to his aid and called an ambulance. Garda Mick McDermott and Dr Antoinette Dolan from Monivea were soon at the scene and kept him warm with blankets until the ambulance arrived. Ironically, because of the state of the frozen roads, the ambulance was delayed and it was some time before Gabe was safely stretchered and on his way to University Hospital, Galway.

After viewing the initial x-rays, surgeon Fintan Shannon was at first hopeful that the leg might be saved, although Gabe’s knee was riddled with tiny pieces of lead shot and there was a high risk of infection. There were hopes of a knee replacement, but after thirteen operations in the eight weeks following the accident, Gabe began to feel very sick as infection did set in.

“At this stage, the decision was made to amputate the leg above the knee”, he recalls.

“The feelings of sickness and weakness disappeared following the surgery and I began to get my strength back almost immediately, though I still experienced phantom pains in the leg which had been amputated.”

Two weeks after amputation, he was discharged from hospital and his long journey of rehabilitation began.

For twenty years prior to the accident, Gabe had worked as a heavy machinery and plant mechanic. The loss of his leg meant this career was now history and he had to plan for a new future. He vowed then that he would see this turning-point in his life as an opportunity rather than a disaster.

Arriving back to his home in Cloonkeen, outside Athenry, Gabe says that the help from his family and neighbours was heart-warming.

“Neighbours rallied around”, he recalls, “doing general chores, collecting the kids from school, bringing in turf, etc, I can never thank them enough.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.