For Sam Ladward, birthday is not a sad holiday. He turned one hundred and six, despite the fact that the man 76 years ago was considered dead in an accident when he crashed on a motorcycle.
The former carpenter had a terrible accident in 1936 on a 500cc Triumph motorcycle, which he had previously ridden for no more than two months. Sam Ladward bought a hellish car from a local farmer. The ill-fated motorcycle belonged to his son, but brought the guy continuous troubles. “I just brought him back to my senses,” recalls Mr. Ladward. “Put the rear tires on. I thought the front ones were okay, but I was wrong. It turned out - they are terrible."
After crashing on a motorcycle, Sam Ladward fell into such a deep coma that doctors thought he was dead. But the porter who was taking him to the hospital morgue noticed that the "corpse" was moving and brought him back to the ward, where Sam Ladward spent five days until he regained consciousness.
“My first recollection from the day I came to my senses was people standing around the bed and patting someone's hand on my arm,” says a man who miraculously survived. "I knocked the feeding cup out of the nurse's hands." It took another six months for the injured head and face to heal.
Now, when Mr. Ladward is celebrating his 106th birthday, he says with confidence that he has lived not just a long, but a good life. In addition, not everyone has such a "lucky chance" to be born twice. After all, the fact that he managed to survive, he calls a great success, and jokes: "Everything will be fine with me, and so soon you will not get rid of me."
He continues to travel by bus from his home in Guernafield to the city almost every day with his companion, 90-year-old Millie Minshall, his late wife's cousin. Born and raised in Cheshire, Mr. Ladward lived with his late wife Edith in Blackpool. Mrs. Ladward passed away in 1993, but before she died she told her husband that her sister would look after him. “She said go to Millie,” recalls Sam Ladward. “And here I feel really good. We take care of each other. And we walk a lot, although, however, I'm getting old for this. Although I'm doing great for an old man,”laughs Mr. Ladward. And Millie herself claims that the relative is not bad at all for his age.
Sam Ladward celebrated 106th birthday with the family of Mrs. Minshell's daughter.