Defying the Label — Season 1, Episode 9: Disabled in an Instant

Episode synopsis

Disabled In An Instant is a film about what happens to young people who have battled to survive a life-changing illness or injury, only to get out of hospital and find themselves facing an even bigger fight to access the support they need to live the life they want. Coronation Street actor and wheelchair sportsman Peter Mitchell, who was paralysed in a car crash 13 years ago, sets out to help and questions why the very systems in place that are supposed to assist disabled people don’t work better. Along the way, Peter meets 19-year old Billy, who broke his back in a motocross accident last June and lives in a hotel room after leaving hospital because of the time it's taking to adapt his family home; Jacob, a 23 year-old who survived meningitis and spent two years in hospital, but when he finally gets home finds himself trapped there without a specially adapted car; and Helen, who had to learn to walk again after being paralysed by a rare autoimmune condition, but whose struggle with the benefits system is ongoing.

About Defying the Label

Explores what it's like to live with a disability in the UK today.

More episodes from Season 1

• E1Don’t Take My Baby
• E2Me & My New Brain
• E3The Ugly Face of Disability Hate Crime
• E4Wanted: A Very Personal Assistant, Episode 1
• E5The Boy Who Wants His Leg Cut Off
• E6The World’s Worst Place to Be Disabled?
• E7The Unbreakables: Life & Love on Disability Campus, Episode 1
• E8Wanted: A Very Personal Assistant, Episode 2
• E10Life Begins Now
• E11The Unbreakables: Life & Love on Disability Campus, Episode 2
• E12Epilepsy & Me
• E13Find a Home for My Brother