As soon as Shaun Fogarty could talk again in the months after suffering a catastrophic neck injury, he revealed his determination to return to college.

The physics student was coming home from serving tables at a wedding on the night of a car accident in 2013 which resulted in him breaking two bones in his spinal column.

It was one of two jobs he juggled while attending the University of Limerick and fitting in rugby and martial arts sessions into his busy life.

His family, who feature alongside the Tipperary student in new RTE series My Uni Life, were initially told his injuries were incompatible with life.

23/09/2020 - University of Limerick student Shaun Fogarty pictured on the Living Bridge in UL. (Photo by Diarmuid Greene)

His C1 injury meant he has had to learn to eat, drink and speak during his gruelling hospital and rehabilitation treatment which lasted more than three years.

But Shaun, who is paralysed from the neck down, said he decided to continue his university education “as soon as I started speaking”.

Arriving back at a lecture hall in his old college two years ago with a nurse and carer, he had changed his science course to Mobile Communications and Security.

But he had the same objective as he had on first arriving on campus in 2012.

In a phone interview, he revealed: “The biggest thing is you wake up and say, ‘Right, I’m going to go and do this today and I’m not going to be by the wayside’.

“Anything that comes my way I am just going to overcome it because I have this specific goal in my mind.”

Shaun remembers his mother Gretta, father Kevin, brother Tiernan and sister Chloe as being constantly by his side trying to decipher what he was attempting to say.

He added: “I was able to communicate through blinking and mouth movements. My family as a whole were kind of the thing that drove me and had me keep going.”

Shaun said he’s “lucky to be eating and drinking” with a C1 injury.

He explained: “I didn’t eat for about six months, so getting back to eating and drinking and all that kind of stuff was an interesting experience.

“I’m back now. It was a long enough process getting there. But I don’t find it is useful to dwell on the past too much.

“I have always been looking forward
to doing different things and discovering what’s new out there even from a very young age.

“Getting back home and going to college all kind of came together so it was a great feeling to get back to a semblance of real life.”

Shaun is now in his final year while also working part-time with Cloud Assist.

He said: “I’m hoping to work from home which would be the ideal for me.”

And he rates his biggest achievement in returning to campus is paving a path for other people with similar injuries.

Shaun explained: “If somebody is saying, ‘Well, he’s done it I can do it now’, it will be an amazing feeling that I have inspired them to be able achieve their dreams.”

  • My Uni Life will be aired on RTE One on Friday at 7.30pm.