Love story: When life changed in an instant, Lucy was Beau's rock

Beau and Lucy Vernon were young, athletic and had big plans for the future. But when their lives were altered forever, these high school sweethearts built a strong partnership by supporting each other's dreams.

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These are Beau and Lucy's words. 

'Shared love of sport' bonds young love

Beau: We were only 15 when we first met, we went to high school together at Phillip Island in Victoria.

Lucy was in the year above me.

We were down at the footy oval, kicking the footy with each other and one thing led to another and we started hanging out more.

It was a shared love of sport and being outdoors that brought us together.

Lucy's a very level-headed person, and she was just easy to get along with and have a good time with.

Lucy: As a teenager, I played netball, and Beau played footy at the same club.

And he came out of the change rooms one time without his shirt, and that was probably it for me.

Beau was always determined and driven, and he wanted to play AFL so I could see that he was someone who clearly had goals and worked hard. That was probably part of what drew me to him.

After high school, I wanted to pursue a psychology and marketing degree at a university in Melbourne.

Beau wanted to focus on AFL. It wasn't easy juggling the two, but it wasn't like either of us were happy to just go along with the other one.

'I knew something was very wrong'

Beau: We'd been together for eight years when the accident happened. I was 23, and Lucy was 24.

Lucy usually would come to my footy games, but that day she'd stayed in Melbourne.

It was down in Wonthaggi, so an hour and a half away. Lucy's parents were there watching the game, and I was also playing with my brother.

My teammate passed me the ball, and it was a bit too far out in front.

I bent down to pick up the ball, and someone running the other way hit me pretty much straight on, and my neck dislocated.

From that moment on the ground, I knew something was very wrong. I couldn't move my arms or my legs.

I was pretty scared.

Lucy: I was staying in Melbourne and doing some work for my master's degree, and I rang my sister-in-law who was at Beau's game to see how they were going.

She said, 'someone's down, it might be Beau, I'll let you know'.

But no-one knew how bad it was at that point.

He got airlifted to Melbourne, and about eight emergency staff took us into a room. I thought 'this can't be good'.

They said, 'he's got a spinal cord injury', and you can't comprehend what that means at the time, I don't think your brain lets you.

I remember going into the intensive care unit where he was trying to be bubbly and then as soon as I left, I just couldn't talk to anybody.

The thought of him living like this was not something we could process for a fair few months.

'A celebration of how far we'd come'

Beau: In terms of my injury, it is C5/C6 quadriplegia or spinal cord injury. I've got no movement from my chest down.

I had to figure out how to be at home independently, without nurses or support workers.

Getting through that really built a stronger bond together.

If you understand what I can do now, with what muscle function I've got, it's pretty amazing.

I remember Lucy's old man putting a bit of pressure on me to propose.

We'd been together for nine years and ended up buying an apartment in Melbourne.

I just laid a heap of flower petals down the hallway, and I put them in our car park and in the lift. Lucy was like, 'why are these here?', I think she kicked them out of the way.

She got into our apartment, and I was waiting at the end of the hall, and it was a good moment.

She's a very, very caring person, and I just love doing life with her. She's always been so supportive of me in what I want to do, including wheelchair rugby.

I represented Australia at the Paris Paralympic Games, and we won bronze. That was just unbelievable.

Lucy: We'd been to a few weddings after Beau's accident, and he got pretty upset at the thought of not being able to walk down the aisle.

He was still grieving everything.

So, I just thought we wouldn't get married, which didn't bother me.

The wedding was awesome because we had like 200 people in Beau's parents' backyard and everyone just wanted to celebrate after two years of pretty shitty times.

I think the wedding was probably when we felt we could start to set other goals.

We had to do IVF, so we were kind of like 'let's just start' in case we have issues.

Layla was born a year later, then in 2018 Joey was born, and in 2020 Ollie was born.

It's definitely had a positive impact on the kids, having a dad with a disability.

They are a lot more empathetic and aware.

There's never been a conversation about, 'why me? Why did this happen?'

I never felt like Beau was trying to push me away, and he's always supported me.

I'm now doing my PhD, he plays wheelchair rugby at a high level, and I think that mutual support is really important.