Hamish Bolto shares story of strength with Kukerin kids raising disability awareness and encouraging kindness

Kukerin Primary School welcomed a special guest late last year when Hamish Bolto paid a visit to share his story as part of Dumbleyung Shire Meets Disability Day. The December 13 meeting was organised by Dumbleyung CRC co-ordinator Megan Marshall using a $1000 grant obtained from Developmental Disability for an International Day of People with Disabilities event. Mr Bolto, who beat the odds as an 11-year-old to overcome a horrific accident in Katanning, kept the kids enthralled. “It’s the first time I’ve spoken to a live audience about my accident,” he said. “I’ve had documentaries and stuff done on me but I’ve never been asked to speak.” While riding his motorbike around the family property in 2015, Mr Bolto accidentally rode through a strand of barbed wire, tearing his throat open and severing his vocal cords. “I was 11 at the time, I’m 19 now,” he said. “I spent 101 days in the hospital with one of the hardest surgeries the EMTs had ever had to do. “Two days after I was stitched up I had a massive stroke, I had a 50 per cent chance of living and my prognosis was that I would never walk, talk, eat or breathe on my own.” Mr Bolto pushed through three hours of intensive rehab a day, speech therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy, and defied expectations as he regained his strength and independence. “I just took each day as it came,” he said. “Through the support of my family and my community, I was able to make a really good recovery.” Kukerin Primary School students spent the morning outside on the oval playing visually impaired tennis with special whistling tennis balls while blindfolded to gain an insight into the experience of disability before heading into the classroom where Mr Bolto was introduced by Ms Marshall. “You’ll see as an adult that there are lots of people with lots of challenges,” she told the children. “We want to plant the seed today that we need to treat people with respect, kindness and consideration.” The medical and physical challenges Mr Bolto overcame were massive — the challenges he faced when he returned to school six months after the accident were too. “It wasn’t very nice but I knew I had to do it and one day I’d finish school and probably forget about it, and that seems to be coming true,” he said. “When I went back I had an EA (education assistant), certain kids didn’t want me sitting with them because they didn’t think it was cool, kids didn’t want me playing on their sports teams and generally I was excluded. “Even after everything I’d been through, school was probably the hardest thing I ever had to do.” Mr Bolto shared his school experience, his recovery journey and the special friendship he developed with West Coast Eagle Josh Kennedy with the group before the children bombarded him with questions and made posters to spread Mr Bolto’s message. “It doesn’t take much to be nice people but it can make all the difference,” he said. “The lesson in this is to be kind to everyone because you don’t know what’s going on in their life.”