A CROWDFUNDING appeal for a North Tawton rugby player left paralysed after falling from a roof has raised nearly £30,000 in just four days.

Chloe Dennis described the community support for husband Craig’s rehabilitation as ‘absolutely amazing’.

She launched the Crowdfunding appeal for £75,000 on Saturday at the urging of family and friends, after a ‘rollercoaster’ month at Craig’s bedside in Derriford Hospital. Within just 24-hours it had already raised £17,000 as people rallied around the couple.

‘The support has just been absolutely amazing,’ said Chloe. ‘Lots and lots of people have been fundraising for us. Now is the time when we really do need to ask for people’s help and reach out to them.

‘The appeal went live on Saturday and I spent a lot of the day crying — more than even I had in the past four weeks — at the level of support we’ve had.’

Money raised will be used to pay for alterations to the couple’s house near South Tawton as Craig is likely to remain with life-changing injuries. It could also fund specialist further treatment and ensure Chloe is able to take time off from work to care for him.

‘The nature of his injuries are really severe,’ said Chloe. ‘His spinal injuries are rated as “complete” which means complete paralysis.

‘It is basically about regaining as much independence as he can. We want to make sure he has as much chance of recovery as possible.’

Craig, 25, has been left with spinal injuries following a fall from the roof while helping out on his parents’ farm at North Tawton a month ago.

He also suffered bleeding on the brain and a fractured skull.

Miraculously though, after surgery and weeks in intensive care, Craig has woken up completely free of brain damage.

Chloe said: ‘They did say he wouldn’t be the person he was before, but he is, and it is just amazing.

‘His recovery from the brain injury isn’t what anyone expected, so he has got it in him to hopefully go on and make further recovery.

‘He is on the waiting list now for rehabilitation on the NHS, but that could be anywhere in the UK so he is still in Derriford.’

The young couple, who married four years ago, live in a barn conversion on Chloe’s parents’ farm near South Tawton. Chloe works as a dance teacher at Footsteps School of Dance as well as running a beauty treatment business.

She added: ‘We don’t know yet what independence he will be able to regain but it is likely that I will need to assist him.’

‘Craig won’t be able to get into our bathroom in a wheelchair so it will mean tearing that to pieces,’ she said.

‘We will have to either do lots of adaptations to our house or try and build something else that is suitable.’

Craig, a self-employed roofer and steelwork fabricator, fell from a roof whilst helping on his parents’ farm in the last week of June.

An emergency CT scan at the RD&E Hospital in Exeter revealed the devastating extent of his injuries which included a severe bleed to the brain, multiple fractures to his skull and major spinal damage as well as other injuries and complications.

Craig was blue-lighted to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth where emergency surgery on his brain was performed by the specialist head trauma and neurological team. Aa second operation on his brain was required less than 24 hours later in order to save Craig’s life.

‘We had some really scary days,’ said Chloe, ‘There was one when it was really touch and go when his heart reacted to potassium in the blood.’

Craig remained in intensive care for three weeks as recovery was thwarted time and again by infection and a whole host of secondary complications.

More procedures, scans and changes in medication followed as medical staff fought to get Craig stable. This included a nine-hour operation to his spine.

‘It has been an incredibly difficult month,’ said Chloe. ‘We’ve been on an emotional rollercoaster with hope arriving only for despair to come again. Every time we dared to think we had passed the worst, we were hit by another crisis.

‘His rehabilitation is going to be unimaginably tough and it is not a journey I can bear for him to go through alone.

‘Juggling the business which I have worked so hard to build up alongside the need to be with Craig through his rehabilitation is going to be difficult but given the physical and mental challenges Craig is facing, it is incredibly important to us both to be together through this.’

The couple have been together since they were 16, marrying four years ago. Craig is captain of North Tawton Rugby Club, whose members are now rallying around to fundraise for the couple.

The Footsteps School of Dance, where Chloe teaches, is also planning a fundraising event.

‘Chloe and Craig are a well-loved couple, hardworking, kind and fun to be around,’ said family friend Heather Parks.

‘Their lives have been turned upside down this horrendous accident. Everyone who knows them wants to do something to help.’

Find out more by going on the Go Fund Me website by searching for ‘Craig’s Journey’.