MY STORY
The Accident
In January 2023, a moment of ordinary DIY changed my life.
I was using a circular saw, a tool I had used confidently many times before when in an instant, it jumped and struck my right hand. All four fingers were almost completely severed at their bases, held on only minimally by skin, while my little finger was completely detached.
Within seconds, everything I had taken for granted about my future as a pianist was thrown into uncertainty.
I was alone at the time, but managed to get my neighbour's attention. An ambulance arrived within minutes, and I was taken to Wexham Park Hospital, a specialist centre for hand and plastic surgery. Every minute mattered. The possibility of saving my hand depended on how quickly treatment could begin.
For a pianist, the hands are more than simply a physical tool. They are the means through which years of study, instinct, imagination and expression are translated into sound.
Suddenly, I did not know whether I would ever play again.
Surgery and Early Recovery
The surgery that followed lasted eight hours.
My bones were wired, tendons repaired, and blood vessels and nerves reconstructed in an attempt to restore movement and circulation to my hand. Although several fingers were successfully saved, my little finger could not be preserved and was amputated five days later.
The future of my index finger was also uncertain. Failing circulation meant that it came close to being lost, but after thirteen days of intensive leech therapy, blood flow gradually stabilised and the finger survived. The injury, however, left permanent damage to the nerves and tendons, with reduced sensation and movement.
In the early days, there were no guarantees about what my hand would eventually be able to do.
The question of playing the piano again felt almost impossible to answer.
Recovery would involve far more than allowing an injury to heal. It would require learning how to live with a hand that had been fundamentally changed, physically, emotionally and psychologically.
Rebuilding
When I was discharged from hospital, I began an intensive programme of rehabilitation with my occupational therapist, Gaby Willis.
The work was demanding and often consumed hours of each day. Treatment focused on restoring movement, strength and flexibility, managing scar tissue, and gradually retraining the neurological patterns that allow the hand to perform complex movements almost without conscious thought.
For me, however, rehabilitation had another dimension.
I needed to learn how to play the piano again.
At first, I could barely press a key. Movements that had once been automatic were suddenly difficult, awkward or impossible. Years of technical development could no longer simply be relied upon.
Slowly, one movement at a time, I began to rebuild.
I worked on finger independence, span, strength and touch control. Exercises were adapted around the specific demands of piano playing, and because Gaby is herself an amateur pianist, she understood that recovering movement alone was not the same as recovering the ability to make music.
The process became a form of exploration.
I was not simply trying to restore what had been lost. I was discovering what remained.
Relearning the Piano
Music has always been far more than a career to me. It is a fundamental part of how I understand myself and the world around me.
One of the most difficult aspects of the injury was grieving not only the loss of part of my hand, but the sudden disruption of years of repertoire and technical development. Pieces that had once been deeply familiar suddenly felt out of reach.
For a long time, I thought recovery meant getting back to where I had been before. But gradually, I began to understand that this was not really possible. My hand had changed. My technique had to change with it.
There was a point at which I had to stop asking, How do I get back? and begin asking, What can I create from here?
That shift in thinking became one of the most important parts of my recovery. Instead of trying to reproduce the pianist I had been, I began exploring the possibility of becoming a different one.
Day by day, small improvements began to compound. A movement that had once felt impossible became possible. A passage could be played more freely. A finger gained a little more independence. Gradually, hope was replaced by evidence.
I began to believe not only that I could play again, but that my experience might ultimately change the way I made music.
Fifteen months after the accident, I returned to the concert stage.
More Than Physical Recovery
The recovery of my hand was only one part of the journey.
There was also the experience of losing something I had spent my entire life developing, and the uncertainty of not knowing what the future would look like.
There were moments of grief, frustration and doubt. There were times when I questioned whether I would be able to continue as a professional pianist. But I also held a lot of positivity and gratitude for what had been saved and for my supported progress. This contrast of emotional pulls was fundamental in me keeping balance and perspective.
But alongside those emotions was something else: curiosity.
What music could I still play?
How might my interpretation change?
Could limitations become a source of creativity rather than simply something to overcome?
Over time, I came to understand that resilience was not about refusing to acknowledge what had happened or pretending that nothing had changed.
It was about accepting that some things could not be restored exactly as they were, and then deciding what to do with what remained.
Support, Medicine and Music
I was fortunate to be supported by specialists who understood the importance of returning not simply to everyday function, but to a highly specialised form of performance.
My rehabilitation with Gaby became an important collaboration between medicine and music. Exercises were adapted to the particular demands of piano playing, including finger independence, movement patterns, span and control of touch.
My recovery has since attracted wider interest within the medical and rehabilitation communities. My case has contributed to international journals, research and professional training, helping to provide insight into the rehabilitation of complex hand injuries.
Techniques used during my recovery, include CMMS (Casting Motion To Mobilise Stiffness) plaster casting, a specialised approach designed to block loose joints in plaster to force stiff ones to work harder, retraining joint movement and neurological control. The results of this have been shared through education and training for hand therapists around the world.
This connection between my experience as a musician and the clinical work that helped me return to performance has become an increasingly important part of my journey.
It has also opened conversations about the relationship between injury, rehabilitation and artistic identity, not only how performers recover physically, but how they adapt when the relationship with their instrument and body is permanently changed.
Where I Am Now
Today, I continue to perform as a concert pianist, but my relationship with music has changed.
The experience has given me a deeper awareness of touch, movement and sound, but also of the fragility of the things we often take for granted.
My programmes increasingly explore themes of resilience, reconstruction, transformation and continuance. The story behind them is not simply one of overcoming an accident. It is about what happens when returning to the life you knew is no longer possible, and the challenge of creating something new from what remains.
That idea now runs through much of my work, whether I am performing in concert or speaking about my experience.
Music has become the place where those experiences can be explored without needing to explain everything in words.
It can hold loss and uncertainty, but also possibility.
I do not see my journey as a return to the pianist I was before.
In many ways, it has been the beginning of becoming the pianist I am now.
We don't choose what breaks us apart. But we can choose what we create from the pieces.
