Ian Whittingham was born on the Wirral, on 22nd September 1967. He was second of three children. By the age of 3, Ian had developed a keen interest in construction vehicles and could often be found at home in his garden riding a toy tractor. From the age of 10, he took up driving real tractors on a local dairy farm. His father was a plant driver in the construction industry, and at the age of 17 Ian decided join that same industry by training as an industrial roofer. He made many friends at work and enjoyed his working life tremendously until it was cut short by his accident.
Following his accident, Ian spent several months in hospital and several years undergoing rehabilitation, learning how to adapt to life in his wheelchair - which he often called his 'greatest friend'. He spent many months living amongst elderly folk in a OAP home while waiting for his family home to be specially converted, including the building of an annex, in order to accommodate Ian's new life with his wheelchair. But Ian wasn't one for taking life laying down. It was during his time in the OAP home that he learnt to drive a specially adapted car, and in 1994 he passed his driving test at the first attempt.
Ian felt so strongly that his accident was preventable that he vowed to educate others (both workers and employers) in how to work safely. Through sheer determination he put himself through as many safety training courses that he could and began campaigning for improved safety awareness and personal worker responsibility up and down the length of the UK. In 2003, Ian was awarded an MBE for his services to health and safety in the construction industry.
In July 2007, year 10 Media pupils from West Derby Boys School in Liverpool produced a 10 minute video on DVD showcasing Ian's life, featuring an interview with Ian Whittingham himself. The video is called Ian's Story.
Windows users - To download the video Ian's Story (42 Mb), right-click on the image on the left and choose 'Save Target As' ('Save Link As' in Firefox) from the menu, then choose a location on your computer for the video file to be saved to. Make it somewhere memorable like My Documents or the Desktop.
