the times | Monday February 21 2022 5life
Top: from left, Esther
Bentley, Simon Bentley,
Josh Bentley, Tanya
Bentley-Wachsmann
and Paul Morgan-
Bentley celebrate the
“accidentversary”.
Above: Simon Bentley
on a skiing trip in 2015,
15 years on — and now
wearing a helmeta hospital bed, kept alive by wires and
machines. We sat around his bed and
sang Hamalach Hagoel, a Jewish
lullaby that he would sing when he
put us to bed as children.
He had multiple fractures, and we
were told that if he survived he would
need brain surgery. The doctors
predicted major scarring for life and
changes to his behaviour, such as
increased anger, lack of concentration
and inappropriate comments.
He was flown back to London by
light aircraft — cheers, insurance
company! — and thankfully the brain
surgery was a success. In retrospect,
his recovery was pretty miraculous.
After about a year of rehabilitation,
he was ready to work again. He lost
sight permanently in one eye, and his
sense of smell. He has scars across
his forehead that he wears with pride.
Changes to his behaviour were not
anywhere near as extreme as
suggested, although one prediction
was accurate: he loves innuendo,
uses it at all the wrong times, and
is outrageous at dinner parties.Mostly, the experience of almost
dying sparked in my dad a
determination to live life to the full.
He threw parties, booked holidays,
worked harder than ever, learnt to
sail, took financial risks that did not
always pay off, and showered us
with lots of affection. He carried on
skiing, although now with a helmet.
My mum put up with the changes
and has become expert at rolling
her eyes when he makes one of his
awful dad jokes, inevitably following
with “I blame the accident”.
Initially, January 17 passed every
year with a few sad comments or
us ignoring it. One side effect of
the physical trauma experienced
by my dad is that he doesn’t
remember a three-week period
around the accident. But we do. While
he suffered the blow and most of the
consequences, he is lucky that he can’t
remember the terror of the first few
days afterwards, what he looked like
while he was unconscious or the
anxiety of not knowing if he was going
to survive. Those days were most
traumatic for my mum.
A few years ago — I can’t remember
exactly when — my dad suggested
turning the date into a fun evening
instead and, by then, we were ready.
I have three siblings, Debbie, Josh and
Tanya, and we all have children. We
either get babysitters for the night or
our partners stay at home so we can
go out. Debbie lives abroad so joins in
by phone. We eat and drink too much.
There’s usually a bit of reminiscing
but, mostly, it’s just an excuse to be
together and laugh.
It was typical of my dad to take
a day of sadness and turn it into an
opportunity to celebrate life. This
takes a level of single-minded
positive thinking that most people
find impossible to contemplate.
I blame the accident.The ski trip was
nearly fatal for
his father, but Paul
Morgan-Bentley’s
family still toast its
‘accidentversary’
O
n January 17, at an
Italian restaurant in
north London, my
family got together
to share unhealthy
amounts of pasta,
tiramisu and red
wine. We toasted
my dad, Simon, as we do on this date
every year. It is not his birthday, or
a wedding anniversary, but the date
that he almost died in the Swiss Alps
after ski-luging into a tree at 30mph.
My dad’s almost fatal accident in
2000 was incredibly traumatic for him
and all of us, resulting in him being
flown by emergency helicopter to
hospital, put in an induced coma,
having brain surgery, staying in
hospital for months and then learning
to live with life-changing injuries.
This may seem an odd experience to
celebrate. But a few years ago my dad
suggested turning the date on its head
and marking it by celebrating life with
a boozy evening out. We called it his
“accidentversary”, and it stuck. Like
all of the best traditions, it is slightly
incomprehensible, evolved by mistake
and has become one of the highlights
of the year.
I tweeted a photograph of us
celebrating and the response was
lovely. One colleague told me that
a friend of his almost died of a heartattack on a hockey pitch and his
family do the same thing, referring to
the date as his “second birthday”. They
also send a present to the man who
saved his life. We know the name of
one of the doctors who looked after
my dad in Switzerland but, most likely,
he was saved by a team of paramedics,
doctors and nurses in the first few
hours after the accident, when he was
given a 50 per cent chance of survival.
We have not tried to find them all but
have considered tracking down the
tree and exacting our revenge.
My dad was on a company ski trip
when he almost died. He was 44 years
old and was running the retailer
Blacks Leisure at the time — an
incredibly talented businessman, he
had risen through the ranks to become
one of the youngest chief executives in
the country before he was 35.One evening, the group booked
ski-luging, which involves racing
down a nursery slope on something
that looks like a tricycle but has skis
instead of wheels. It was not so
common to wear helmets then. He
wasn’t wearing one when he crashed.
The wives of two other men on the
trip came round to our house and told
my mum, Esther, what had happened.
We all flew out to Switzerland in the
hours that followed and my dad was
unrecognisable, lying motionless inWhy we celebrate the day
my dad almost died
We were told that
if he survived
he would need
brain surgery
GETTY IMAGES