The Miracle Man: Young Scot Ethan Walker suffered multiple injuries in a horror road accident… but cycled from Scotland to Munich to watch Euro 2024 just months later

Maybe it’s for the best that Ethan Walker can’t remember anything about the day he could have died. 

Nor can the teenager remember much about the hours and days he then spent in a critical unit in an American hospital in September 2023 while his mother Jaclyn sat by his side having been told that her football-loving son might not make it.

‘Yeah, I would say it’s a good thing,’ the 19-year-old admits as he sits in the home in Ellon he shares with his parents and his younger sister Sienna some 16 months after the road accident that could have killed him.

‘It’s just my mind looking out for me. I can’t remember it. I can only imagine the pain that my family was put through at the time.’

But Ethan can recall the plane ride back to Scotland when he still had a feeding tube down his throat. And the moment Professor Gordon Mackay, the surgeon who put his knee back together, suggested they both cycle from Hampden to Munich for the beginning of Euro 2024 last year.

He can remember meeting Scotland international John McGinn at the start of that journey and Scotland captain Andy Robertson at the end of it. And he can remember when he was told he was being given a ticket for the opening match between Scotland and Germany.

Ethan Walker is fit and healthy and has a unique perspective on life after almost dying

The Aberdeenshire-raised 19-year-old loved every minute of his cycle trip across Europe

Walker was a promising footballer and had gone to college in America to chase his dream

So much has happened to Ethan Walker in the last 16 months you could make a film about it. In fact, someone has. Film-maker Martyn Robertson’s documentary Make It To Munich will receive its world premiere as the closing film at this year’s Glasgow Film Festival.

Which means Ethan is about to become a film star.

‘Something like that,’ the teenager says, smiling.

He smiles a lot, despite everything he has gone through. Spend any time with him and it’s clear he is a curly-haired, unfailingly positive, dryly funny teenage miracle.

It is early evening when we talk and he has been working today. On Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays he’s a lifeguard for Sport Aberdeen. Mondays to Wednesdays he’s at college where he’s studying sports coaching and development at HND level.

His days are full and active. But the teenager knows that it could have been so very different.

On September 12, 2023, Walker, then in America on a soccer scholarship, was walking back to his dorm at Genesee Community College in New York state when he was struck by a car travelling at 60 miles per hour.

The catastrophic list of injuries he sustained in the collision was horrifying. He suffered two separate brain injuries, a lacerated lung, fractures of his pelvis, left hand, skull, shoulder and the tibia on his right leg, as well as multiple injuries to his right knee including lots of ligament damage. The meniscus cartilage on his knee ‘flipped’ as a result of the impact. He also suffered from dysphagia (an inability to swallow), nerve damage and facial lacerations.

The list of injuries sustained by Walker in the horror accident makes for grim reading

‘Everything that could have gone wrong probably did go wrong,’ Ethan suggests with a touch of understatement.

The son of Paul, who works as an electrical supervisor offshore, and Jaclyn, who’s a personal trainer, Ethan had gone to the States to further his goal of becoming a professional footballer.

‘Football was my pride and joy growing up,’ he says. ‘Wherever there was football I was there. It kept me busy and I absolutely loved it. Rain or sun, I was there playing. Back in my prime, I was a very good centre-back.’

He played for Huntly Under-18s — ‘I captained them,’ he points out — and Huntly Under-21s. He also played for Islavale and Longside at junior level.

An Aberdeen fan, Ethan grew up hero-worshipping Cristiano Ronaldo and Sergio Ramos. (‘He was a brilliant defender. You could always count on him.’)

He was still 17 when he travelled to America at the end of July in 2023 and things started well for him at Genesee FC.

‘I loved it,’ he says. ‘Honestly, it was the best experience of my whole life. Everything was amazing and the whole atmosphere was so good.

‘I was playing for Genesee and I had started five out of the six games we’d had. The level of football was unbelievable. I struggled to keep up. I have never seen people play as well as they do.’

Despite never having been a cycling enthusiast, Ethan jumped at the chance of the German trip

And then the accident happened.

The fact that he was a fit, young man was a factor in his survival and recovery. But talk to him and you can’t help but feel his natural positivity may also have been important.

‘As soon as I was walking with a little Zimmer frame down the corridor in the hospital in America I was asking people to race and all that, so I still had a sense of humour,’ he recalls.

Of all the injuries he had to cope with, it was the dysphagia that seems to have bothered him the most. It required him to be fed via a tube.

‘I couldn’t really swallow. I wasn’t strong enough to swallow anything yet,’ he says. ‘But I overcame that a month after I came home.

‘That was the hardest part, but it never put me up or down.’

He travelled back to Scotland still with a tube down his throat.

‘We had to get food and syringes for putting the food down my tubes,’ he adds.

Walker was challenging fellow patients to Zimmer frame races as soon as he was on his feet

‘That was the hardest part. And then being on the plane was quite difficult and uncomfortable, but I managed. I just had the will to get home to my own bed.’

All told, he was in hospital in America for around a month. Ethan admits: ‘Yeah, I was told it would be about four months. But I said: “Naw, that’s not happening”. I was going home.’

He turned 18 just over a week after he got back. ‘That was not the best. I couldn’t eat, couldn’t do anything.’

But being home in Scotland brought a huge sense of relief, he admits. And then the recovery work began: ‘My mum was working with me. Speech therapy was working. Everyone was helping, getting me back on my feet.’

That was when Professor Mackay got involved. He not only reconstructed Walker’s right knee, but built a special bond with the teenager.

‘I will forever be thankful for meeting Professor Mackay and the amazing surgery he performed,’ Ethan says. ‘The support he’s given me has been life-changing. He is so inspiring and a great character.

‘I feel very blessed and lucky to have met him. We just hit it off and it feels like I’ve known him for years.’

It was Professor Mackay who first suggested the idea of cycling to Munich. Walker couldn’t believe it at first.

Walker with professor Gordon Mackay, the surgeon who put his shattered knee back together

He reveals: ‘I thought: “Oh, he’s joking. Surely?”’

Walker hadn’t even really been much of a cyclist before. So why say yes?

‘I thought it would be fun,’ he explains. ‘It was fun.’

And so last June, less than a year after he suffered life-threatening injuries, Ethan, Professor Mackay, fellow member of the Tartan Army Stephen Collie and film-maker Martyn Robertson left Hampden to cycle the 1200 kilometres to Munich to arrive on the eve of the opening game of the Euros.

That might seem daunting, especially given everything he had gone through. But not for the teenager, it seems.

‘I loved every second of it. It was some experience,’ he beams. ‘I would do it again in a heartbeat.’

There were challenging moments. Cycling into the wee small hours, missing dinner (his main bugbear, it seems). Ethan’s knee even started swelling up at one point. His own fault, he admits: ‘I was cycling no-handed. That inflamed my knee. I soon learnt my lesson.’

If nothing else, the journey gave him the chance to meet two of his Scotland heroes. ‘John McGinn is a brilliant guy and Andy Robertson is a really nice guy, very supportive. He’s a good captain,’ he says.

Andy Robertson and John McGinn took the time to meet with Walker before Germany clash

…but the Scotland skipper’s predicted outcome proved some way wide of the mark

‘But he did say they’d beat Germany that night!’

What about football now? The game was always his passion. He’s started helping coach for Longside FC, one of the clubs he used to play for. Their support has been amazing, he says.

But Ethan’s own playing days, he accepts, are over. Does he miss them?

‘No. I missed it before I knew I wouldn’t play again. But now I have ruled it out, I’m not really missing it.

‘I play at college on a Monday. We’ll not tell Gordon that. I’ll sometimes play, but I’m normally in goals and stay well out of everyone’s way.

‘I always knew that being a footballer might not happen,’ he adds, ‘so I had other things to rely on and other dreams. And I’m just pursuing them now. I want to be a PE teacher, so that’s why I’m doing this course just now. And then hopefully I’ll do another year after it at university and get my teaching degree. That’s what I’m hoping for.

‘But it might change along the way because I did want to be a PT (personal trainer) for a while, so I might end up just doing that.’

Ethan admits he feels very lucky to have come through what he has. What has he learned about himself from this whole experience?

Walker will take centre stage as a documentary on him is screened at the Glasgow Film Festival

‘I’d say I’ve learned how strong my body is and how willing it is to keep fighting. And how determined I am and who I have as support; all my family have been amazing.’

Does he think he is now a different person?

‘A lot calmer, but everybody says they don’t see much difference. I wouldn’t say I’m much different. I still do the same things, just in a more controlled manner.

‘I would say I’m definitely more mature now. I don’t necessarily view life differently, but I appreciate it more than I did and I take care with everything. I am more self-observant. Before, I was almost gung-ho.’

Right now he has a film premiere to prepare for. What he’s going to wear for his red carpet moment?

Ethan Walker smiles one last time. ‘If I had my way I’d probably wear shorts and a T-shirt.’

The world premiere of Make It To Munich will take place on Sunday, March 9 at the Glasgow Film Theatre