Listening to your gut instinct can save your life. At 15, Simon Harrison ignored his grandmother’s warning and his own inner voice one Saturday night in May 1996. He was hit by a train and lost his left arm. Thirty years later, he returned to his old school to tell young people what that choice cost him, and in that moment, something broke open.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses trauma & healing, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you’re not alone. Help is available:
• Blue Knot Foundation (complex trauma): 1300 657 380 · blueknot.org.au
• Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au
Simon Harrison was 15 when his mother died of a brain tumour. Years later, adrift and drinking, he ignored his grandmother’s plea to stay home one Saturday night. He was run over by a train and lost his left arm. The accident fractured his life into before and after, spawning decades of complex PTSD and recurring nightmares that would not lift. For 23 years, radio work kept him afloat. Then, by chance, he met Simone at Radio Northern Beaches, a former schoolmate whose brother had survived a nearly identical accident. Nine months after their first interview, Simon returned to Barker College, nearly 30 years to the day of the accident, to stand before Year 10 students and tell them what it costs to ignore your instincts. Standing in Leslie Hall, the scene of his past, something shifted. There were no amount of hours on a psychologist’s couch that could match what happened in that room. For the first time, the weight lifted. By speaking his mistake aloud to protect others, Simon unburdened himself from 30 years of shame and guilt. He discovered that the platform matters less than the message, and that sometimes the deepest healing comes not from therapy, but from standing in the place where you were broken and choosing to use your voice to help someone else listen to theirs.
🕒 CHAPTERS:
00:00 Welcome back to Grit Diaries with Simon Harrison
02:09 Saying yes to the story that scares you
05:44 Two Barker students, two train accidents
06:18 Simon’s snapshot: the accident and what came after
09:02 I should have listened to her
11:46 Standing in Leslie Hall, 30 years later
15:09 Complex PTSD and the healing that came
18:06 Why young people hear him
20:22 Using his voice on stage
23:14 Message over storytelling
24:02 Gold nuggets from Grit Diaries and Kintsugi Heroes
26:01 The ripple effect: from grit to grace
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Welcome.
We’re glad you found your way here.
Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most.
Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object’s history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another.
This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn’t go to plan.
Here you’ll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens:
• Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham
• Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale
• Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova
• From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd
• Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience
• Pride in Stories, hosted by John Dwyer
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We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear.
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