After losing his arm in a freak river accident in December, Horsham's Lindsay Hobbs talks to Mail-Times journalist JUSTINE McCULLAGH-BEASY about getting on with life.
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LINDSAY Hobbs isn't one to dwell on the past.
He is moving forward - organising a charity bike ride, preparing for a possible return to work and aiming to be back playing for Kalkee Football Club in 2012.
Hobbs, 20, is adjusting to his new life after his left arm was severed above the elbow when it became entangled in a rope swing made from a seatbelt.
He said his quick-thinking friends Sam Eastwood, Jarred Martin and Shaun Bruce helped save his life, taking him to Wimmera Base Hospital.
"I jumped out of the tree and as I jumped out the rope swung into me," Hobbs said.
"I knew something was wrong, and it all happened so quick.
"I looked at my arm and it was gone."
Hobbs, whose friends have nicknamed 'Clock', doesn't want the accident to define him.
"They call me that because I have one long arm and one short arm," he said.
"It could have been worse. I don't want any sympathy."
Six months on, Hobbs wants to thank Caulfield Community Rehabilitation Centre for helping him with his recovery.
Hobbs, who wears a prosthetic arm for up to five hours a day, said he and friends Damien Thomson and Jagen Ross were planning a charity bike ride from Adelaide to Melbourne to raise money for the rehabilitation centre.
"A couple of my mates are into bike riding and we were having a few beers one night and the bike ride came up and we thought it would be a good idea," Hobbs said.
"It's all in the planning stages.
"We were thinking of doing over 100 kilometres a day.
"Shane Crawford ran it in a bit over a week so we should be able to do it in under that.
"Whoever is keen to do a bit, the merrier.
"It's not something you can say you've done everyday."
Hobbs said he would have to be fitted with a prosthetic arm suited to bike riding and would ride the entire trip of about 700 kilometres.
"If I get this arm soon we probably won't do the bike ride until the end of the year because we'll have to do a fair bit of training," he said.
"I have to get a bike fitted for me and modified ? they put all the gears and brakes on one side."
Hobbs said he was building confidence in using his prosthetic arm and was becoming less reliant on using his right hand for everything.
He said the Caulfield rehabilitation centre had helped him understand how to use it.
"I went in there the first week and I got fitted up with the arm. They made that up in a day or two which was pretty quick," he said.
"The first couple of weeks was about practising with it ? picking stuff up, chopping up food, using tools.
"I am slowly getting the hang of it. I am slowly using it more too, when I first had it I barely even used it but now I look for it to hold things."
Hobbs has returned to Kalkee Football Club.
A key player in the Kees' 2010 reserves premiership, Hobbs is now helping the club out as a runner.
He is eyeing a return to the football field, and knows anything is possible.
"I'd definitely give it a crack," he said.
"I'll wait until the tenderness goes out of my arm.
"It's not too bad but if I copped a knock on it, I'd cry like a little girl."
Hobbs said the club was important to him and he was grateful to still be playing a role.
"It's a good atmosphere out there," he said.
"It's nothing like playing but it keeps me involved."
Hobbs is eager to return to work too.
He had completed his first year as a linesman apprentice at Powercor before the accident.
"I don't know how I'll go with that but they have told me they'd like me to finish my apprenticeship," he said.
"I have a meeting with them in June to discuss whether I can go back for a couple of days a week around the yard.
"There are ways around everything so we'll figure it out."
