A rugby tackle gone wrong paralysed Andrew instantly. That hasn’t stopped him from walking a full field

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If you told Andrew Regan four years ago that it would take him more than 18 months of training to be able to walk the length of a rugby field, the man who played club union for a decade would have laughed. But that was before a tackle gone wrong broke his neck, paralysing him instantly.

Now 39 and living with quadriplegia, Regan spent more than 10 months in hospital recovering from that fateful game. The week he was discharged, he stood up for the first time. Then, it was on.

Andrew Regan (pictured with Nedd Brockmann) has been walking 100 metres with assistance every day since October 20 to raise money for the fight against homelessness.

Regan spent a year learning how to stand and bend his knees with a frame, and then he tried assisted walking with parallel bars. It was slow-going – Regan had to overcome “debilitating ankle spasms”, a neurological response to his injury – but eventually, he walked three metres with assistance.

There was no doubt in his mind that he wouldn’t stop until he could walk 100 metres.

“When I said that to my physios, they just sort of raised their eyebrows,” Regan tells this masthead with a laugh. “But then once the spasms went away, I said, ‘All right, guys, seriously, how about this hundred?’”

Three years to the day of his accident, Regan returned to the site of the April 2022 game – Emus Rugby Club’s Endeavour Oval in Orange, NSW – for a symbolic full-field try.

With the assistance of his support team, who, from the ground, physically lift his legs up to help him take his next step, Regan pushed through spasms and walked the 100m oval length.

“It was really for me to claim that day back for myself,” says Regan, who used his walk to raise money for others injured playing rugby union. “You don’t ever want to bury the negative things that happen in your life because your life is made up of good and bad things, but I just wanted to add a good thing to that day.”

Six months on, Regan is walking 100 metres again, every day for 10 days, to raise money as part of Nedd Brockmann’s Uncomfortable Challenge. Inaugurated in 2024 with Brockmann’s brutal 1600-kilometre run – he “kind of died” out at Sydney Olympic Park over those 12.5 days, Brockmann says – proceeds from the event go towards Mobilise, a charity that offers direct funding for housing and essentials to people facing homelessness.

Regan, who has enough strength to stand, fought through ankle spasms – a neurological response to his injury – and walked his first 100m in April. Here he is pictured in Orange on Saturday.

The rules of the challenge are to pick something that makes you uncomfortable, and stick with it for 10 days straight (it could be anything, says Mobilise founder and chief executive Noah Yang, who this year is meditating for 30 minutes and speaking to 10 strangers every day).

Last year, Brockmann raised at least $2.5 million for the cause. This time around looks a little different for Brockmann, and not just because he no longer has the nation’s most famous haircut; Brockmann isn’t physically participating in his “Uncomfortable Challenge” this year. Ironically, that’s something the 26-year-old electrician, who fractured his foot in June, told this masthead makes him uncomfortable.

“How on Earth can people listen to me if I’m not going to do something?” he asked. “If I don’t go to war with them, how on Earth are they going to do it for me?”

Happily so, if you ask Regan, who has followed Brockmann since his mammoth 47-day run from Perth to Bondi Beach in 2022, and seen on social media what Brockmann has put himself through for “such a worthwhile cause”.

Brockmann has spent the challenge – which runs from October 20 to 29 – travelling around Australia to visit participants. On Saturday, Brockmann was at Gosling Creek Reserve in Orange, helping shift Regan’s frame as he walked 100m to cheers from almost 100 locals.

“Homelessness can happen to anyone,” says Regan, who is doing the challenge also to set a good example for his four-year-old son. “Even though this horrible thing has happened to me, I’ve been able to get through it because I’ve got a home, I’ve got the support of family and community, and people who are homeless don’t have that.”

No one knows this better than 24-year-old physiotherapy student Natalia Hogan, who took a break from her final year assessments to run, overnight on Saturday, from Sydney to Newcastle.

Running makes Hogan feel strong, she says, and while 170 kilometres is by far the furthest she’s ever gone, for the 11-year-old Hogan who was couch-surfing with friends and felt like she had no control over her life, it’s worth it.

“I have such a big space in my heart to be able to help other young people who are going through similar situations,” Hogan says.

It took a while for Hogan, who grew up in and out of foster care, to feel comfortable enough to share her story. It wasn’t until she was 16, when she secured a studio apartment with Samaritans Student Accommodation, that she had a safe and stable place to live. Hogan didn’t want to be treated differently, or viewed as broken, when people found out.

An emotional Natalia Hogan crosses the finish line at Empire Park in Newcastle on Sunday afternoon, having run overnight from Sydney to raise money for Samaritans through Nedd’s Uncomfortable Challenge.

Hogan was joined by Brockmann during a pitstop at Mount Kuring-gai on Saturday. She still had a whole night of running, and agony, ahead of her.

“There’s a massive stigma around homelessness, that it’s their choice, or it’s something they’ve done … that’s so far from the truth, and I couldn’t imagine where I would be without those services,” says Hogan, who is raising money for Samaritans via Mobilise.

Hogan has spent the whole year preparing for her fundraising feat, practising her pacing and training with pretzels, mini blueberry muffins and noodles so her gut can get used to running with food in her stomach.

Her friends – who followed her on the highway in a campervan (with a toilet) or on foot with head torches – built her a playlist of “pump-up” songs to help her push past the moments of exhaustion, which is when doubt and injury creep in.

“It’s a really long, long process,” says Hogan, who crossed the finish line at Emu Park on Sunday afternoon. “But so worth it to make an impact.”