Gym instructor nearly killed me

When the pain seared through the back of my head, it was so sudden and intense, it was as if I'd been shot. One minute I was straining to push an enormous weight with my legs, and the next, something "popped" in the back of my head and I blacked out.

I had paid £20 for one session of specific advice from the head trainer at my gym because I wanted help in building up my legs. I've always been fit - I'll do anything from running to snowboarding - and a regular gymgoer, and I played rugby competitively until a bad tackle injured my shoulder and ankle three years ago. I know plenty about the technical side of fitness and the biodynamics of the body, but I wasn't getting the results I wanted with my legs, which was why I'd booked the training session.

We had gone straight onto the weights machines. I suggested I should go and warm up with, say, 20 minutes of cardiovascular work on the rowing machine, to raise my heart rate, oxygenate my blood, expand my lungs and generally get everything working properly, which is the way I would normally train in order to limit injury. But the instructor said I'd be fine. I wasn't so sure - I feel it can't be healthy to exercise like that, and if you are working big muscle groups, such as those in the legs, intensely, you need a lot of oxygen moving through them in the blood.

I was worried from the start. On the first machine, the weight he started me on was my normal absolute maximum - the most I'd ever manage on a day when I was feeling really good - and soon he had me pushing weights that were 65 per cent heavier. I told him it felt heavy, even for me, and he just said okay, and went on to the next machine. Looking back, I should have insisted on doing less, but I trusted him. He was the head trainer, and a nice guy.

When I got off the second machine, my legs had begun to feel wobbly, as if I'd done 45 minutes of fast rowing. So, when we moved onto the seated quad press machine, I said that the weights - which were again well above my normal range - were high enough. After the first set of repetitions, I could feel the veins standing out on my forehead, but he just said: "Come on, let's get the last couple of sets over and done with." I managed the next two repetitions but then I felt an intense pain in the back of my head. It felt as if I'd been shot, it was so sharp and piercing. I've never known pain like it - and I've broken plenty of limbs playing rugby. I blacked out, I'm told, for four or five seconds, and when I came round, I didn't feel too good, so the trainer suggested we stop there.

I don't remember what happened afterwards so well. It's only a 10-minute walk home from the gym, but it took me an hour and a quarter. I thought of going to see a doctor in the morning, but I was very busy at work, so I went in. I was getting dizzy and stumbling around and by lunchtime I felt dreadful. Colleagues urged me to ring the doctor, and when I did, and described what had happened, I was told to get to hospital as fast as I could.

When I got there, the consultant I saw said: "I think you know what you've done" - but I still didn't. I could feel that something had "popped" in my head, but I was hoping against hope that it was some sort of muscle-tear which had affected my head, although at the back of my mind I must have known it was a brain haemorrhage. I spent a week in hospital, a very frustrating time, while they carried out test after test - MRI scans, CAT scans, lumbar punctures. The doctors were certain there was a haemorrhage, but couldn't find it. I was feeling very odd in my head - spaced out, and not terribly coherent - and found myself getting quite aggressive. Lumbar punctures are not the most pleasant things to go through, and I was sore for three weeks just from those.

I went home for a few days, then was called back to hospital, urgently. They had located a sub-arachnoid haemorrhage in the rear left part of my brain. It was hard to take in everything the neuro-surgeon was saying. They would have to operate. It was possible, he told me, that everything would go well, and I'd be able to lead a normal life. But the haemorrhage couldn't have been in a worse place. It was just alongside the neuron strip - the bit that's related to all your senses. If things went wrong at all, I might lose all feeling in the right-hand side of my body.

The neuro-surgeon was drawing pictures of what needed doing, and it would have been interesting if it was happening to someone else, but all I could think was: "That's going to happen to my head?"

It did cross my mind that I might die, but it wasn't something I wanted to dwell on. There was no question of not operating. I went home for a few more days while the consultants mapped out my brain before the operation. There wasn't an immense urgency to get it done - my brain wasn't haemorrhaging in the way that a road-crash victim's might, from external pressure. But my surgeon was worried that I might develop epilepsy, as the internal pressure from the haemorrhage in the brain was building up on certain points - and that pressure needed to be relieved.

I put on a brave face for my parents, and I didn't tell them until I went back into hospital for the operation. I didn't want to upset them. My mother was in quite a state. I'd had leukaemia when I was six, and she has horrible memories of me being in hospital then, which must have made it all the worse for her.

My operation finally took place at the beginning of June. It took six hours. They cut out a section of my skull and used that hole to get in, deal with the haemorrhage, then sew me back up again. To everyone's relief, it went well. The scar on the back of my head is 10 inches long, and S-shaped. I don't feel too bad, though I get shooting pains in the fingers of my right hand, which I'm told will fade.

I'm well enough to take gentle exercise and walk the dog, and have started a bit of swimming, but need to limit the amount of intensive exercise I do because of the pressure that it causes in my brain. At the start of the year, I had been hoping to start playing competitive rugby again, but that is going to have to wait. I have to go back to hospital in September, for more tests to ascertain how well certain valves in my brain are working.

I'm just trying to relax a bit and spend time with my family in the countryside - though it's hard to relax when I know there's so much on at work. The company I work for has been brilliant about the whole thing and, just last week, I was able to try doing a couple of days back at my desk. My girlfriend has been very supportive and understanding - an absolute star.

I don't feel anger or resentment towards the trainer. He was trying to push me to get a result, but I think he went the wrong way about it. I'm taking legal advice - - my consultants have pointed out that, in their opinion, this sort of thing doesn't happen during the course of everyday training, and the haemorrhagewas a direct consequence of following the trainer's instructions. I only just feel well enough to start tackling the whole issue. I hope my story and this recent report act as a kick-start to the industry. The Government is keen for people to get fitter, and I don't want to put anyone off the idea of exercise - I have no time for people who just sit on their backsides and complain about being fat when it's very simple to get up and get moving - but the safety aspect is important.

I'm not scared of exercise, though I'm being guided by my consultant as to what I can do. But I will stick to what I know is safe. I've never had problems in the past when I've followed my own advice as far as training programmes go. If I ask for advice from a gym instructor again, I'll interrogate them first as to how much they know and what they plan to do with me.

But I will never again walk into a gym and think that just because someone is the senior instructor, I should believe every word he says.