At 20, Marc Brew was the sole survivor of a horrific car crash that killed three fellow dancers. The accident, caused by a drunk driver, left him paralysed from the chest down and forced him to rebuild his life and career.
Brew, now 48, was sitting in the back seat of a car on a motorway near Johannesburg when a pickup truck came hurtling down the wrong side of the road. 'Out of nowhere, I just remember seeing this white flash,' he says. The truck, driven by a drunk driver, struck the car head-on, killing everyone else inside.
Nine months earlier, Brew had moved from Australia to South Africa to join the Pact ballet company in Pretoria. On the day of the crash, he had attended his usual morning dance classes before setting off with friends Joanne, Simon, and Toby towards a game reserve. When the truck hit, 'it was like time froze,' Brew recalls. 'I remember my ears were ringing really loud.'
Brew was rushed to hospital, where he spent two weeks unconscious. When he woke, he found he could not move his legs. A CT scan revealed a spinal cord injury at the neck, leaving him paralysed from the chest down. He also suffered internal bleeding and a cardiac arrest during his treatment. 'I really had to keep on fighting hard, almost like coming out of water, trying to get up to breathe, to survive,' he says.
Despite the devastating injuries, Brew resolved to continue his ballet career. After months of rehabilitation, he began choreographing and performing from a wheelchair, eventually becoming an internationally acclaimed dancer and artistic director. 'I had to learn to live in a new, uncharted reality,' he says. Brew's story is a testament to resilience and the power of the human spirit.
