Alexandra: I am British Jamaican parentage. And so my mum's Jamaican, my dad's British. And so I've lived both in Jamaica and in the UK throughout my life.

Alex: Alexandra Rickham spent a lot of her childhood in Jamaica.

Alexandra: The colours are very vivid, the blue of the sea versus the gold of the sun, and the green of the fields and, and, and then also the diverse mix of people on the island and the skin colours.

We lived in the countryside, on essentially a farm, hanging out with ducklings and dogs, playing out in nature.

Alex: When she was 13 – it was the summer of 1995 – Alexandra decided to head down to the ocean for a swim. Her sister, mum and a group of friends went too.

Alexandra: It was a Sunday morning, really bright, sunny Sunday morning. And we got to the beach and my sister and my two friends slowly walked into the water. And I, in typical fashion, instead of walking like everybody else I, I decided to run.

Alex: Now, Alexandra knew this beach like the back of her hand – she’d been going swimming there since she was little.

Alexandra: The interesting thing about the beach is that it has a reef really close to the shore. So there's quite a decent drop off fairly close to the shore. So for all of my life, you know, I'd run into the water and dived and kind of done like a semi shallow ish dive. And it hadn't been an issue.

Alex: But what Alexandra didn’t know was that hurricanes had affected the depth of the water along that coastline.

Alexandra: And I basically ran into the water, dived. And the next thing I knew was I opened my eyes and I was looking at the sea floor. And um… you know, when you see those ads for like a Caribbean holiday, and you see the rippled sea floor that look like mini dunes underwater and the light, sort of reflecting from above through this clear– crystal clear blue water, that was exactly what I was looking at, just below me. I was floating facedown. I tried to move, I couldn't, I tried again to move I couldn't. And at that point in time, I knew what had happened.

I think in the back of my mind, I knew.

Alex: Growing up, Alexandra had always been active. She loved swimming, she played tennis twice a day. But as a kid, her first love was horse riding.

The stables where she rode also trained the Paralympics team, so Alexandra spent time helping riders with disabilities.

Alexandra: And that was something that I remember, you know, my mum – for her, it was really important that I was a part of that, that I was able to help somebody else in the community achieve their goals and dreams.

My mum is like all West Indian women, I'd say, very strong personality. She comes from a family of women. So they're all very strong personalities.

My mum can go into a room and somebody could be literally on death’s door, you know, with illness, and she is just able to talk to them naturally. She doesn't blink, she doesn't flinch. She sees the person, not the not how, you know, what their body has done to them,

Alex: She made Alexandra and her older sister Victoria feel that they could do anything. And she always made sure that they would be able to fend for themselves.

Alexandra: I think my mom always told us from like, day one, that we needed to be independent. So she, she was always teaching us things, you know, from like, the age of five, this is how you wash clothes, because like, you know, one day I'm not gonna be around to help.

Alex: The girls weren’t wrapped in cotton wool: they knew about the realities of life from a young age.

Alexandra: My mum is a problem solver, so like, the minute anything goes wrong, she just goes into how do we fix it mode? And I definitely have that quality of hers.

Alex: So that’s probably why – when Alexandra was lying face down in the sea that summer day — she wasn’t panicking.

Alexandra: So at that point, I just held my breath. And… and waited and for what obviously seemed like a lifetime, but really was you know, a few seconds in reality.

Alex: Her sister Victoria – who was 18 at the time – saw what happened and sprinted towards her.

Alexandra: My sister ran through the water, flipped me over and I looked at her and I said to her I was paralysed.

And as you can imagine for an 18 year old that was quite a lot to take.

Alex: But Victoria quickly switched into emergency mode.

Alexandra: She, you know, just clicked into, you know, let's sort this out mode, how do we get her out of the water.

Luckily, there was a nurse on the beach that day. And we found a boogie board. The nurse basically helped to get me onto this board and slid me up onto the sand, you know, where they, you know, kind of were asking questions, but I you know, I couldn't move at all I couldn't move from my shoulders down. My shoulders in, in reality weren't actually paralysed. So I think I probably had them right up against my ears at that point, but I couldn't move anything, couldn't feel anything.

Alex: Alexandra was flown to Kingston, Jamaica’s capital, where they confirmed she had broken her neck.

Three days later, an air ambulance took her to a hospital in Miami, where she had multiple operations.

Alexandra: The first time they sit you up is incredibly painful. Your body just is in complete shock, because I'd been lying on my back for a week or 10 days, and it's amazing how your body just degrades so quickly, you atrophy, everything seizes up, and I was just in… it was just like, shards of glass being shoved into me.

Alex: Doctors told her she had tetraplegia, meaning paralysis in all four limbs, and would be a wheelchair user for the rest of her life.

Looking back now, Alexandra marvels at just how practical her 13-year-old self was – in the face of this devastating news.

Alexandra: It'd be very different if I had my accident now. I think I was very accepting of things, you know, and just very, like, this is the way they are right, what are we going to do about it? I kind of went into emergency problem solving mode of, okay, what's the next step? How do we deal with the next thing? Rather than, let's dwell on the situation because it's out of my control.

I think I was far more developed at 13 years old, and I am now sometimes but um, I don’t know, I was just living in the moment trying to laugh about stuff, you know, because like, there wasn't really a lot I could do.

Alex: She was in hospital for months – followed by long and complicated rehab.

Alexandra: I just really was focused on getting back to school and getting back to life. And so I literally – anything I was told to do in rehab, I just did.

I mean, I had to learn everything again. You know, I had to learn how to feed myself again, how to use cutlery and stuff and that, you know, just holding things took forever you know, because I was lucky enough to regain some of my hand function. And I used to drive the OT mental because I used to, like say I'll have grapes for breakfast and then chase you know, a grape around the bowl for about three quarters of an hour and she'd be like, Please give up. And I just, you know, I wasn't – I was incensed.

Alex: The accident didn’t dim Alexandra’s love of sports – or being out in the water. In fact, the injury set her life on a totally different course.

While she was in rehab, Alexandra went sailing as part of her recreational therapy.

Alexandra: I really enjoyed it, because it was a very different sport, you know, it was nice to be out on the water, it was nice to be out of your chair, just you know, in different surroundings, I think seeing the world from the water is very different. Getting a different perspective on the land that you live on all the time.

Alex: At that point though, Alexandra couldn’t see how she would be able to pursue an athletic career. Education became her main priority. She studied Natural Sciences, and tried to move on from sailing. She got her masters in Environmental Technology.

But then, in another twist of fate, Alexandra was contacted by the Backup Trust, a UK charity that supports people affected by spinal cord injuries.

Alexandra: Somebody reached out to them looking for a helm to train up. But the helm needed to tick the boxes, in effect. They needed to be a 1.0, which, with all Paralympic sports, there are classifications and one pointer was the most severely disabled. So that was me. So I ticked that box. And also, he needed a woman in the boat. And funnily enough, I ticked that box, and there weren't that many of me around.

Alex: A year later, in 2007, the Royal Yachting Association offered Alexandra the chance to team up with Niki Birrell, an Olympic class sailor who lives with cerebral palsy.

Alexandra: Basically they said that the berth was still open for the Beijing spot, to go to the Beijing Games and you know they’d put us together and give us you know, a bit of a leg up and kind of an accelerated bit of training and and you know we could go and try for the vie for the spot.

Alex: To say it was a good match … was an understatement. Together, Alexandra and Niki went on to compete in three Paralympic Games: Beijing, London and Rio. They were world number 1 for six years, bringing home two Paralympic Bronze medals and 5 consecutive world titles.

It was during London 2012 that Alexandra felt a real shift for the Paralympics as a whole. She says prior to London….

Alexandra: … the Paralympics was slightly devalued, versus the Olympics. The athletes weren't necessarily seen as athletes. It was sort of a lesser– oh it's just this thing that follows the Olympics, you know, and it's for disabled people. And, it sort of had these moderately negative, I guess, connotations.

Alex: What happened in 2012 was that full coverage of the Paralympics was broadcast on Channel 4, rather than being relegated to highlights shown on the BBC.

Alexandra: Channel Four committed to really bringing it to life, and valuing it in exactly the same way. And that was huge. And I think that media coverage changed the game, coming into the games itself. And so suddenly, we had two comparable multi-sport events.

Alex: For Alexandra, being up there on the podium after winning bronze in London … it was incredible. Her entire family turned up from Jamaica to show their support.

Alexandra: It was amazing to see that outpouring of love.

Alex: After the race, Alexandra and her team took the train from the southern English coast back up to London. The train staff made an announcement over the tannoy.

Alexandra: They just said, you know, welcome to the Paralympic team. They've got their medals on board, and they're going to be walking through the carriages. So come and say hi.

Alex: For the three-hour train journey, people came up to Alexandra and her team to take photos and wish them well.

Alexandra: And it was huge, like, you know, for me, that was, like, all my Christmases have come, you know, like, I literally was buzzing.

Alex: There was a palpable excitement in London during those Games – you could feel it in the air. Alexandra especially remembers the celebration afterwards.

Alexandra: You have this double decker bus parade, going through London, every bus has a different sport on board. You know, a million people turn out across London – literally seas of people, like you couldn't see, you know– all you could see were people on either side of the buses. You're there with all your teammates , people are screaming, crying, you know, like, literally something I will never again experience in my life, I'm pretty confident. And, and again, just that euphoria, that, that love, that kind of intensity.

Alex: Shortly after the Games though, some of the shine came off that London 2012 optimism. And Alexandra had a sharp reminder of how much farther we have to go when it comes to inclusion.

She was heading towards the door of an underground night club in central London, a few minutes behind the rest of the Paralympic team. And a big bouncer, dressed all in black, turned her away.

Alexandra: He was like no, we can't let you in. Can't get you down there, you know, the stairs and stuff. So it was kind of a mix between, oh, we can't let you in because, you know, we're very exclusive. And we can't let you in because of your disability

Suddenly, like my gold pass to entry– I’m in my full Olympic kit. Everybody else has gone in ahead of me, and I'm not being allowed in. And very clearly the only explanation is that it's because of my disability, because I'm a wheelchair user, suddenly, it's an inconvenience to take me down the stairs.

And, like, the earth just came fully crashing back the impact of reality came back, you know, because this egalitarian, beautiful kind of Olympic bubble that we’d all been existing in, suddenly the realities of being disabled again, and what that meant were, came, slamming straight back into me like a wave basically. And, and that was… it hit me hard. I was just upset at the fact that I was going to have to contend with this even though I had been as successful, or more successful in some instances, than some of the people who are going in there and my success had no value in… in the real world.

Alex: That pragmatic, single-minded focus that Alexandra’s mum instilled in her from an early age helped her recover from a life-changing accident – and it played a huge role in making her the world class athlete she is. But it also meant that adjusting to regular life after being a Paralympic sailor wasn’t easy.

Fortunately Alexandra found a way to combine her two loves: sport and sustainability.

Alexandra: I know that sport has the ability to change. The Olympics sparked something. And so I wanted to be a part of that. So I still work in sport. I work in sustainability in sport. So looking both at social and environmental impacts, because my background is environmental science and policy. At the moment, I'm about to start the role as head of sustainability for World sailing. So for the International Federation, and very much a focus for me is how do we use sport as that platform for change and for good and as well as intrinsically changing the industry as a whole

Alex: Alexandra’s maturity and level-headedness shine through as she tells her story. Her ability to deal with the life-changing implications of her accident clearly took great inner-strength and resolve. But not only has Alexandra been able to live a rewarding life following her disability, she has excelled. Very few people can say that they have won an Olympic medal, much less in their own country. She can, and those moments of celebration will no doubt stay with her forever. But there is clearly more which needs to be done by society to improve inclusivity. We have shown that we are able to support our athletes who have disabilities during the Olympics. Now we have to show that we can support those with disabilities in everyday life. We can do this by continuing to improve disability access to remove the barriers that need not exist.