In 2014, during my second year of university, I fell from a fifth floor balcony. It was suspected that my drink had been spiked.

Along with many, many other injuries, I had my leg amputated below the knee.

The police had ruled that it was a suicide attempt, so that’s what I woke up to after I was in a coma for a week. I had no memory of the accident; those are eight hours I can not place, at all.

Even though I was assessed to be mentally sound and suicide was no longer suspected, a lot of friends dropped out of the picture. I was 19. At that age a lot of people don’t know what to do around mental illness, or suicide-prevention, so they just stayed away. But it just made me feel even more isolated.

I won a silver medal at the Paralympic Games just two years after my accident. There is no way I could have done that if I didn’t have the emotional support of my family and the friends that did stick around.

I’ve always been big on community engagement, been a volunteer and studied social work at university. A program like this that promotes the need to check in with people, have those conversations and encourage those discussions around mental health is just paramount.