On a Tuesday night in Scullin, Gary was driving to pick up his best friend of 32 years to go for a swim. He never made it.
Instead, he found himself in a hospital bed with a broken neck, needing to have rods and screws put in his C2, C3 and C4 vertebrae and have broken pieces of bone removed that were pressing into his spinal cord.
Gary Wiggins was driving his Mazda when another car, allegedly driven by a 15-year-old, collided into him, which is an ongoing case before the courts.
"[The police officer] got me out and sat me down in the gutter because she was worried that the car was going to go up in flames," he said.
"There was a split decision made by her to drag me out without a neck brace and luckily it paid off, I mightn't have been here otherwise.
"I was just in shock, sitting on the side of the road waiting for the ambulance to show up."
While Mr Wiggins, aged 64, appeared to have minor injuries at the crash, CT and MRI scans at the Canberra Hospital revealed the extent of his extreme injuries.
"Once they did [the tests] it was well, goodnight Gary after that and I wake up the next day, just couldn't believe how sore I was," he said.
"I could have quite easily been killed and I'd be just another statistic."
Laying in a hospital bed and hardly able to move on Thursday, a week since the crash, Mr Wiggins will be looking down the long road of recovery.
"I'm going to be struggling for a while ... not just the physical side of it but the mental side of it," he said.
"Definitely put a dampener on my new year, I can't say it's a happy new year that's for sure."
Before the accident, Mr Wiggins worked as a strapper for thoroughbred race horses, however due to his injuries will likely be forced into early retirement.
"It's put an end to that and I love the animal but there's no way, they're too powerful for me to have an injury like this with the screws and the bolts and the plates in my neck," he said.
"It's not only just painful but it's you know, it's demeaning, just hard to describe the pain that comes with it and being normally a strong person to now to be at your weakest, it's not enjoyable."
Standing by his side every day at hospital, Mr Wiggins' mother Brenda Cooke will be his primary carer.
"I want to see him get back to normal, as normal as he can and we're there for him," she said.
While Mr Wiggins has been grateful for the support, needing care for months from his mother has been difficult to accept.
"I can hardly walk to the toilet and back and I'm living with my 87-year-old stepfather and mum's 84, I can't expect them to be a carer for me," Mr Wiggins said.
"I feel terrible that I'm even putting them in this situation but there's not much options in the case of what's going on, so I can only just deal with it."
Mr Wiggins now hopes more can be done to reduce the number of car crashes as he "wouldn't wish it on anybody".
"I just hope some good comes out of it where it's not just a thing that's swept under the table," he said.
A 15-year-old was charged on December 30 with driving a motor vehicle without consent, failing to stop for police, dangerous reckless driving and driving without a licence.
When charging the boy, magistrate Beth Campbell was left dumbfounded when reading out the charges, asking him: "how could you drive a car? You're only 15."
The boy was refused bail and remanded in custody until January 11 when he is expected to next appear in court.
The alleged 16-year-old passenger was charged with riding in a motor vehicle without consent. He is scheduled to appear in the ACT Children's Court in January 2023.
