He didn’t know his parents, nor his fiancé as they stood vigil over his hospital bed.

“It was four months before I could remember I had three sisters.”

When he saw a bird for the first time, he didn’t know what it was.

“That’s a bird,” his mum Sue told him.

“It was like teaching a baby… we had to repeat words over and over again until he learned them.”

Todd had forgotten everything he had learned in 22 years. A split second on the night of December 29, 2003 robbed Todd of his normal life. He became a virtual vegetable as the car in which he was a passenger slammed under a semi-trailer not far from his home in Wingham. One of his mates died.

A few minutes earlier, the young friends had left the Wingham RSL club after playing pool. Todd was working two jobs - one in the kitchen at the club - trying to save money to buy a house with his girlfriend, whom he had just asked to marry him.

Life was good.

He had moved out of home at 17 to live with some mates, he played football with the local club and he loved rockfishing.

“I was always out with my mates partying… those were the days…”

But at 9.45 that night, Todd’s world and that of his entire family crumpled around him as he lay trapped under the semi-trailer.

“There were no drugs, no alcohol… just speed.”

He estimates the car in which he was travelling was topping 100 in a 60 zone (near Wingham abattoirs).

“I don’t know how or why…. I guess you never know with speeding.

“I guess we thought we were invincible.”

When Todd’s mum and dad received the fateful message that he’d been involved in an accident, his mum thought “Oh, it’s here in town… it won’t be a bad one.”

But when they arrived at the scene of the flashing lights, she could barely make out the wreck of the car under the truck.

“I said to my husband “There’s no way they’ll get my boy out of there alive’.”

Sue was prevented from approaching the scene, even though she demanded to see her son. A female emergency worker took pity on her, asked what her son looked like, and approached the wreckage.

“She came back to us and said ‘He’s still breathing’.”

When they finally cut Todd from the wreck, Sue and her husband followed the ambulance into Taree.

“We saw him at two in the morning before he was flown to Newcastle. We gave him a kiss, told him we loved him, and told him to hang in there.”

They then drove to Newcastle, while Todd was taken by helicopter to John Hunter Hospital. They didn’t know whether he’d be dead or alive when they got there.

He woke up after two weeks, “like a 22-year-old baby,” recalls Sue.

“What do they say?... the lights were on, but nobody’s home.”

But the Greens are ‘blessed’ with a supportive family, Sue says, and four years down the track, they cherish every day because they still have Todd, now 26, with them.

Suffering a severe brain injury as well as other horrific trauma to various parts of his body, he fought for life in the intensive care unit of John Hunter where he spent two months.

“When I left there I still couldn’t eat, walk, talk or communicate in any way.

“I spent seven months in a rehabilitation unit in Newcastle where eventually I learnt to eat, and started to talk. If they sat me up in bed, my body would fall straight back down.”

He remembers the terrible, constant pain. He still recoils at the particular horror of having strangers tend to his toileting needs.

His therapists and his family kept urging him, constantly asking him 12 simple questions… “do you know where you are… is it day or is it night?” It was nine months before he got the 12 answers right.

Then he began learning basic life skills again, as well as speech therapy.

Sue, who along with Todd’s Dad worked full time every day before the accident, has not worked a day since. Since returning to Wingham Todd has had to move back in with his family, because he needs help with many things.

“My goals today are not to have the best job and the most money. All I want is to be able to walk without the help of these sticks.

“I can’t do normal things like just jump in the car and go and get pizza, but today… today I actually drove here… I was pretty stoked with that!”

This last statement brought a round of applause from a group of 16 and 17-year-old school students, who had hung on every one of Todd’s and Sue’s words as they retold their story in Taree this week.

They were guest speakers at the ground-breaking and hugely popular Rotary Youth Driver Awareness (RYDA) course, which is unique in that it attempts to influence attitudes and behaviours of both drivers and passengers before they get their driver’s licence.

In the last four years, around 1300 year 11 students in Rotary District 9650 have undertaken the course. This week at the Bushland Drive racetrack, just on 350 more from the Manning and Great Lakes area had the opportunity of a reality check.

“If by telling our stories we can save just one of you from going through what we have, then it’s all been worthwhile,” said Todd and another accident survivor, Terry Hull of Taree.

“All we are asking you, if you find yourself in a situation in a car with other people, is for you to be prepared to say ‘Stop’.

“Get out of the car, get your friends out too if you can.

“This is something you are doing not just for yourself, but for the friends you love, and particularly for your family.

“Your lives will never be the same if you are involved in an accident. It’s not just you, but your friends and family… it’s like a ripple effect.

“You will lose your friends because they won’t know how to talk to you, how to act around you. They will not feel comfortable so they’ll eventually stop coming around.”

Todd says his friends are all gone, but for a couple who have “stuck by me”.

“It’s not their fault,” says his mum. “They didn’t know what to say or how to treat him.

“It’s been very hard as his mother and father to see this happen, but we know we are one of the lucky families, having Todd back to where he is.

“We want you as young people to have a wow of a time, as young people should, but whatever you do, remember that it has consequences.

“You only have one body, and once you stuff it up, you can’t get it back.

“Todd’s old life is gone. He’s still got a life, but not as you know it. Remember that you can’t stop the clock and you can’t turn it back.

“He is one of the lucky ones in that he has been able to come back home. Others are in nursing homes because their parents can’t look after them.

“Just think, kids. You are so precious… your mums and dads love you so much.

“Have a wonderful life, but look after yourselves.”