# A Concussion, A Wedding and What Matters Most

An episode of [Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1082244480), 25 Jun 2026, 11 min.

Audio: https://mgln.ai/e/187/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/fa326977-3de5-4283-9b8b-af3500c58607/b69b2795-5503-4de1-ac91-af460017906e/df476048-bc3c-4878-8430-b46b00c74b37/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=a05f1702-0c0e-4b0f-8014-af460017907c

One moment he was riding his bike. The next, he was unconscious on the side of the road with no memory of what had happened. This week on I'll Do Better Tomorrow, Justin shares the terrifying cycling accident that left him with a severe concussion, stitches, black eyes, and a completely missing memory of the crash itself. As the family prepares for their daughter's wedding day, the experience becomes a powerful reminder that life can change in an instant — and that the people we love need to know exactly how much they matter. It's a deeply personal conversation about mortality, gratitude, family, and the moments we so often assume we'll get again tomorrow. KEY POINTS: • Justin's near-fatal cycling accident and the frightening reality of memory loss after concussion. • The technology that helped Kylie locate him quickly after the crash. • Why families should always know where loved ones are and how to contact them. • The importance of treating ordinary moments as if they might be the last. • Navigating the emotional complexity of celebrating a wedding while processing trauma. • What parents learn when another child leaves home and starts a new chapter. QUOTE OF THE EPISODE: "Treat this moment like it might be the last time — the last hug, the last meal, the last ordinary day together." RESOURCES MENTIONED: • Garmin incident detection and emergency notifications. • The "Last Time Meditation" concept. • Happy Families podcast episodes on presence and family connection. ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS: • Make sure your family knows where you're going and how to reach you in an emergency. • Review emergency contacts and safety features on your devices. • Be fully present during everyday family moments this week. • Tell the people you love that you love them — explicitly and often. • Spend time reflecting on what matters most and whether your priorities align with it. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: In today's I'll Do Better Tomorrow on The Happy Family's podcast,
[0:08] Speaker 1: My near death experience. How I'm even breathing, talking and
[0:12] Speaker 1: recording this podcast is beyond me and miss Happy Families
[0:15] Speaker 1: on the edge as we prepare for our daughter's wedding today,
[0:19] Speaker 1: that's all happening. Today's about as real as it gets.
[0:22] Speaker 1: Stay with us. It's next. Hello and welcome to The
[0:26] Speaker 1: Happy Family podcast, where you get real parenting solutions every
[0:29] Speaker 1: single day. This is Australia's most downloaded parenting podcast. On Friday,
[0:32] Speaker 1: as we talk about the week that was, the stuff
[0:34] Speaker 1: that we've learned, how we can be better tomorrow. It's
[0:36] Speaker 1: called I'll Do Better Tomorrow, Kylie, I'm going to go first.
[0:40] Speaker 1: The week began with a cataclysmic thud. Would that be
[0:45] Speaker 1: the right word for it. I don't really have any
[0:47] Speaker 1: recollection of what happened, but essentially I was found on
[0:50] Speaker 1: the side of the road, unconscious, underneath my bicycle had
[0:53] Speaker 1: a crash, landed face first. My bike computer says that
[0:57] Speaker 1: I was going seventy kilometers an hour on my bike
[1:00] Speaker 1: when I hit the ground. For those who are listening
[1:02] Speaker 1: for the first time, the bike that I'm riding is
[1:04] Speaker 1: not one of those ones where you wear leather jackets
[1:05] Speaker 1: and full face helmets. It's one of those ones where
[1:08] Speaker 1: you pedal yourself, no motor added, and you wear less
[1:13] Speaker 1: than a millimeter of lycra and a little bicycle helmet.
[1:16] Speaker 1: So I hit the deck going down a hill. I
[1:19] Speaker 1: don't remember going for a ride that day. I don't
[1:21] Speaker 1: remember anything at all. I'd stopped at the top of
[1:23] Speaker 1: a hill and done a radio interview, I do know that,
[1:26] Speaker 1: And suddenly I was apparently ringing you for the third
[1:30] Speaker 1: time to tell you that I had a crash. I
[1:32] Speaker 1: don't really know much more.
[1:34] Speaker 2: There's something really disconcerting that happens when you're talking to
[1:38] Speaker 2: a loved one and they sound normal, but they're not normal.
[1:42] Speaker 2: I'm going to give a massive shout out to Garment.
[1:45] Speaker 2: Actually this is being huge. I received an incident report
[1:49] Speaker 2: the moment you hit.
[1:50] Speaker 1: The deck, so from my bike computer, it sent a
[1:53] Speaker 1: critical incident SMS to you.
[1:55] Speaker 2: Yeah, and gives me a pinpoint location of where you are.
[2:01] Speaker 2: So I got the message. I actually wasn't even going
[2:04] Speaker 2: to message you because I figured it was just I
[2:08] Speaker 2: don't know, but I just did not think that anything
[2:11] Speaker 2: serious about it. In the moment, but I decided to
[2:14] Speaker 2: just scand you a quick text to say, is everything okay?
[2:16] Speaker 2: And I got a message back, no one word no, which.
[2:21] Speaker 1: I don't think I sent. I don't know that I
[2:23] Speaker 1: sent it. I was unconscious.
[2:24] Speaker 2: I'm not sure if you did it or not. But
[2:26] Speaker 2: I then picked up the phone and I rang you,
[2:28] Speaker 2: and you did answer the phone, but there was somebody
[2:30] Speaker 2: with you, and you sounded completely normal. You sounded coherent.
[2:37] Speaker 2: But as you continued to talk, you told me that
[2:39] Speaker 2: you knew who I was. You knew who you were,
[2:42] Speaker 2: but you had no recollection of going for a ride
[2:44] Speaker 2: that morning. You had no recollection or knowledge of where
[2:48] Speaker 2: you were. You didn't know how you got there. You
[2:50] Speaker 2: just told me you were on the side of the road,
[2:52] Speaker 2: sitting in your lycra and you were sore, and the
[2:57] Speaker 2: lady in the background kind of shared with me what
[2:59] Speaker 2: was going on and just told me that she would
[3:01] Speaker 2: stay with you, and then we hung up the phone.
[3:03] Speaker 2: I threw on some clothes and jumped in the car,
[3:07] Speaker 2: and I hadn't even made it down the street when
[3:08] Speaker 2: you rang again to inform me that you'd had an accident.
[3:14] Speaker 2: And at that point I realized that you had no
[3:17] Speaker 2: idea that you had spoken to me previously, and when
[3:21] Speaker 2: I told you that you were, it just confused you
[3:24] Speaker 2: even more. In the time frame it took me to
[3:26] Speaker 2: get from to hang up the phone from that conversation
[3:30] Speaker 2: and get to you as about twenty minutes, and the
[3:32] Speaker 2: ladies that were sitting with you told me that you
[3:35] Speaker 2: tried an extra two or three times to call me
[3:38] Speaker 2: because you were worried that I didn't know where you
[3:40] Speaker 2: were or what had happened.
[3:42] Speaker 1: So I was sitting here and I almost crying just
[3:45] Speaker 1: hearing you say it, because I still don't know. I
[3:48] Speaker 1: have no recollection of any of this. I'm sitting here. Also,
[3:50] Speaker 1: I might add, with my face swollen, I've got black eyes,
[3:55] Speaker 1: I've got stitches in my forehead. My right jaw is
[4:00] Speaker 1: twice the size it normally would be. I'm amazed that
[4:03] Speaker 1: I can speak. It must be the oxy codone that's
[4:05] Speaker 1: cursing through my veins and my blood. Huge hit out
[4:08] Speaker 1: to Sally and orso Manina, two ladies who stopped on
[4:11] Speaker 1: the side of the road to help a cyclist who cling.
[4:15] Speaker 1: Don't know what was going on. Like I said, I'm
[4:17] Speaker 1: pretty sure that I was unconscious when they found me,
[4:20] Speaker 1: and also a couple of ambos who scraped me off
[4:23] Speaker 1: the side of the road with the help of the ladies,
[4:26] Speaker 1: Declan and Mark with their names, and they took me
[4:28] Speaker 1: down to the Sunshine Coast University Hospital. And this week
[4:32] Speaker 1: has just been a week of trying to recover from
[4:35] Speaker 1: a really severe concussion. It's been an absolutely monstrous week.
[4:40] Speaker 2: How are you going with that?
[4:42] Speaker 1: I've been struggling with it. It's been really really hard.
[4:46] Speaker 1: The week has gone by in a blur like I
[4:47] Speaker 1: don't understand how it's happened so fast. It feels like
[4:51] Speaker 1: it's gone so fast, like it's been like a day,
[4:55] Speaker 1: but it's been an entire week. And yeah, just lots
[4:59] Speaker 1: of soreness and and sore head and all that kind
[5:02] Speaker 1: of thing. So my odd a Better Tomorrow wanted to
[5:04] Speaker 1: share had a bad accident. At this point, I still
[5:08] Speaker 1: owned the bike. I'm not selling my bicycles or anything
[5:10] Speaker 1: like that, although I've had a number of people tell
[5:12] Speaker 1: me that I really need to. But really just a
[5:15] Speaker 1: just a reminder, if you're doing anything, make sure that
[5:17] Speaker 1: people know where you're going, make sure that your loved
[5:19] Speaker 1: ones are able to contact you. And I don't know
[5:23] Speaker 1: I've got that Roan and keating, so I think it's
[5:25] Speaker 1: a cover somebody else did it before him, But that
[5:27] Speaker 1: song if Tomorrow never comes. A couple of times this week,
[5:30] Speaker 1: I've really had a sense of my own mortality. It's
[5:32] Speaker 1: really made me wear. Recently, on the podcast, we talked
[5:35] Speaker 1: about the Last Time meditation, and I'm going to do
[5:37] Speaker 1: a full length podcast about it in a couple of weeks.
[5:40] Speaker 1: But this idea that we should really embrace each moment
[5:44] Speaker 1: as if it's our last time that we're going to
[5:45] Speaker 1: be doing it, last time, that we're going to hug
[5:47] Speaker 1: the kids, last time, that we're going to have our
[5:48] Speaker 1: evening meal together, last time we're going to do X,
[5:51] Speaker 1: Y or Z. Because what if it actually is you
[5:54] Speaker 1: want to be present, You want to live in that moment,
[5:56] Speaker 1: soak it up, get the most out of it, but
[5:58] Speaker 1: also make sure that people who you're with absolutely know
[6:01] Speaker 1: that you love them and you were present for them
[6:03] Speaker 1: in that moment. So that's my older better Tomorrow. It's
[6:05] Speaker 1: a fairly short one bit of a morbid one, but
[6:07] Speaker 1: also one where I'm just I'm feeling miraculously saved. We
[6:12] Speaker 1: have a faith background, and I feel like I have
[6:15] Speaker 1: had a watchful heavenly hand over my life this week,
[6:19] Speaker 1: particularly on Monday morning somewhere between seven and seven thirty
[6:23] Speaker 1: when it all came undone for me. It's seventy kilo
[6:25] Speaker 1: and it is an hour descending Keels Mountain Road. Big
[6:28] Speaker 1: day for us today, Kylie, our daughter gets married today.
[6:31] Speaker 1: So we're going to keep the rest of this podcast
[6:32] Speaker 1: really short. After the break, You're Older Better Tomorrow, including
[6:35] Speaker 1: what it's like to be the mother of the bride
[6:37] Speaker 1: for the second time. Stay with us. We're back at
[6:46] Speaker 1: Stappy Family's podcast, Kylie, You're Older Better Tomorrow. A big
[6:50] Speaker 1: week of preparation for a very big day for our
[6:53] Speaker 1: second daughter.
[6:56] Speaker 2: If I'm perfectly honest, everything that's started our week has
[7:00] Speaker 2: really overshadowed so much of I guess the emotion mainly
[7:06] Speaker 2: around farewelling another daughter. She moved out on Wednesday. I
[7:12] Speaker 2: don't think I've really even processed that.
[7:15] Speaker 1: No nursing me.
[7:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel a little bit numb, if I'm really honest,
[7:20] Speaker 2: And today today we're going to go and give her away,
[7:25] Speaker 2: walk down.
[7:25] Speaker 1: The aisle, say congratulations and good luck.
[7:29] Speaker 2: I think the thing that's really stood out to me
[7:30] Speaker 2: through this process, this is our second time round. And
[7:34] Speaker 2: I've been really grateful for both of our girls who
[7:38] Speaker 2: have gone through this is that they just have been
[7:44] Speaker 2: really easy brides to deal with. They have recognized just
[7:49] Speaker 2: the immense joy that comes from making this lifetime commitment
[7:54] Speaker 2: to the person that they've chosen, and that has actually
[7:58] Speaker 2: been the priority. And while baby number one had a
[8:03] Speaker 2: very clear vision of what she wanted, she was a
[8:06] Speaker 2: no way Bridezeialer and she she kind of just shared
[8:08] Speaker 2: a concept with me and allowed me the freedom to
[8:14] Speaker 2: bring that to fruition for her Baby number two, Abby,
[8:18] Speaker 2: she couldn't care less about the details.
[8:20] Speaker 1: I'm getting married. This all the matters just so lot married.
[8:23] Speaker 2: That's all down to the fact that there was not
[8:26] Speaker 2: a dress. There was no dress two weeks ago, and
[8:29] Speaker 2: I was panicking. We'd ordered it six months ago. It
[8:33] Speaker 2: should have been here and it wasn't. And I came
[8:35] Speaker 2: to her and I just said, I think we need
[8:37] Speaker 2: to have a plan be just in case. And I'd
[8:39] Speaker 2: been around to a few of her friends who'd been
[8:41] Speaker 2: married recently to kind of just make sure there was something,
[8:44] Speaker 2: you know, in the background, just in case. And she's like, Mum,
[8:46] Speaker 2: it's fine, I'll just wear my engagement dress snoopig deal.
[8:49] Speaker 2: I was like, oh, my goodness. So I have been
[8:52] Speaker 2: really really grateful for that. And I think the thing
[8:54] Speaker 2: that stands out to me the most is just I
[8:57] Speaker 2: love that there recognition of what's most important is at
[9:04] Speaker 2: the very forefront of everything that we've been doing. And
[9:07] Speaker 2: so while there's lots of details, and there's been you know,
[9:10] Speaker 2: kind of lots of little things that have had to
[9:12] Speaker 2: be pulled together and orchestrated, at the end of the day,
[9:15] Speaker 2: it's actually been quite stress free compared to a lot
[9:19] Speaker 2: of other experiences that I have heard about or been
[9:22] Speaker 2: privy to. And I'm really grateful for that. So today
[9:26] Speaker 2: we get to go and spend some time with our daughter,
[9:27] Speaker 2: and I'm going to cry. It's been really really beautiful
[9:33] Speaker 2: seeing each of the girls come together to celebrate with
[9:37] Speaker 2: their sister, and I just yeah, it's times like this
[9:42] Speaker 2: you just recognize how important good family relationships are.
[9:49] Speaker 1: Well, let's go celebrate. I'm going to put an ice
[9:52] Speaker 1: pack on my face until we get there. See if
[9:54] Speaker 1: I get this swelling to go down a little bit more.
[9:55] Speaker 1: And I'm thinking I'm taking up pottery once we please
[10:00] Speaker 1: get over this concussion.
[10:01] Speaker 2: I'll pay for this subscription now that sons like a deal.
[10:05] Speaker 1: I don't know how we got through this one without
[10:06] Speaker 1: a big sob fest, but it's been quite a week.
[10:08] Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening and joining us on this
[10:12] Speaker 1: journey of crazy family life. Have a great weekend. We're
[10:16] Speaker 1: looking forward to what will hopefully be a wonderful celebration
[10:19] Speaker 1: today and we will be back next week, hopefully with
[10:22] Speaker 1: my brain working the way that's supposed to and with
[10:24] Speaker 1: some stories about the father and mother of the bride, speeches,
[10:27] Speaker 1: and a.
[10:27] Speaker 2: Whole lot more.
[10:28] Speaker 1: The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin Roland from
[10:30] Speaker 1: Bridge Medium. Imhamments provides our additional support for information about
[10:34] Speaker 1: making your family happier. Visit us at happy families dot com.
[10:37] Speaker 1: Do you

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