FROM COMA TO SKIING IN ONE YEAR
Gabriella Le Breton talks with Anne and Matt Masson, the mother and son team behind the inspirational new book The Road To The Top Of The Mountain, a biographical account of Matt’s incredible recovery from a traumatic brain injury
Aged 23, with a free-spirited life of skiing and sailing ahead of him, Matt Masson fell through a roof and suffered a life-changing brain injury. When he awoke from a coma six weeks later, he was unable to talk or sit upright unsupported. Somehow, he defied the odds, and was skiing in the Chamonix valley 366 days after his accident.
The Road To The Top Of The Mountain might be Anne Masson’s first book but you wouldn’t know it. Her honest, concise and uncomplicated writing style has you hooked on the extraordinary tale of her son’s accident and recovery right from the start.
Anne is the primary author, with inclusions from Matt, who is now a successful (if self-described “wobbly”) ski journalist.
Having kept a diary throughout, Anne is candid and matter of fact in her retelling of the traumatic experience. Shining through is her unfailing love and respect for Matt.
We live vicariously through the initial shock of discovering her young son might not survive a monumental brain injury, and join Anne on the emotional rollercoaster that accompanied the recovery, which often felt impossibly slow. “I think recovery from this particular brain injury could be compared to a tortoise circumnavigating the globe. Fortunately, our tortoise was having plenty of fun and meeting lots of interesting new people along the way.”
Together with husband Nick and older son Tim, Anne and Matt are passionate skiers, a thread that draws the entire book together. This shared love of skiing and the mountains not only unites the family but is credited with Matt’s recovery.
Anne mobilised ‘Team Matt’, galvanising a never-ending stream of friends to entertain, stimulate and encourage him. Over time, various members of the freeskiing community also joined the team, with the likes of Jacob Wester, Arianna Tricomi and CR Johnson’s sister, Kahlil, lending their support to Matt’s recovery.
After the accident in November 2010, which had medical experts doubting whether he’d survive, let alone walk or talk, Matt went on to walk 300m unaided, bearing an Olympic torch ahead of the 2012 Olympics; ski the Grands Montets in 2013; complete the Amsterdam marathon in 2014; and graduate from university in 2018. Achieving these milestones required unstinting work, rehab and positivity – the last of which seems to come naturally from Matt. “Don’t tell anyone,” he says to me. “But it’s really not been that bad at all. I was asleep for the hardest bit and life has been pretty good since waking up.”
I get the feeling Matt has, in some ways, sailed through the years since his incident more effortlessly than his mother (who has her head in her hands as Matt shares some of his current goals with me, which include rowing across the Atlantic).
While never self-indulgent, the book includes poignant occasions when, as Anne says with characteristic understatement: “I got a bit down” because of the enormity of the change to all her family’s lives and thoughtless responses to Matt’s “wobbliness”.
Happily, the last are far outweighed by positive reactions to her son’s indefatigable determination to walk and ski unaided, particularly from the ski fraternity. “What is it about these skiers?” she asks in the book. “The love and support they have for each other is quite something. From the men and women operating the ski lifts at Le Tour to the instructors of the ESF, to Roy Tuscany and crew in Truckee [of the High Fives Foundation], it’s been quite overwhelming.”
Set against the current pandemic and my occasional despair with the restrictions it has enforced upon us, the book offers a sobering dose of perspective.
In the face of extreme adversity, the Massons drew together, refused to allow pessimism to seep into their midst and harnessed their shared passion for skiing to drive forward Matt’s recovery.
TV’s Claire Balding sums it up perfectly when she describes the book as “a story of resilience, positivity, adaptability and love” – all things we need spades of at the moment.
The Road To The Top Of The Mountain
is available from WH Smith, Waterstones and The Book Guild Publishing, priced at £10.99