Dimitri Coutya

RNOH patient Dimitri Coutya took the top spot in the wheelchair fencing foil B at the 2024 Paralympics in Paris, winning gold for Paralympics GB. It’s a remarkable achievement following a devastating accident when Dimitri was just two years old, which first brought him to the care of RNOH.

Dimitri came to the hospital after a life-changing road traffic accident left him with a T4 spinal cord injury and paralysed from the chest down at the age of two. Rehabilitation isn’t easy but imagine being just a toddler, in a strange place with a lot of strange people “who kept telling me what to do and when. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t go home”. RNOH staff did all they could to keep their little patient motivated. Dimitri told us: “The staff on the ward were brilliant. They worked tirelessly to help keep a two-year-old boy interested in his rehabilitation and ensure that I received the best possible care.

“If you went down to that physio department, you would have seen a tiny kid hurling big colourful gym balls, racing chairs and bowling to distract me from the potential boredom that came with this kind of rehabilitation. Through their work, what was supposed to be one of the toughest periods of my life became one of the periods that I worked through the most enthusiastically.” Following his treatment at RNOH, Dimitri was eventually able to go home and start rebuilding his life with his family.

Through years of physio and rehabilitation, numerous visits to the hospital, school work and exams, Dimitri’s interest in sports remained and he trained hard. He took on wheelchair basketball and looked set to become a Paralympic player until an option to try fencing at secondary school uncovered his passion for the sport that has led him to where he is today. Thanks to RNOH and to his own determination, Dimitri has been able to go beyond his injury and work towards achieving his dreams.