Lu Spinney on the heart-wrenching anguish of losing her son Miles

When Lu Spinney’s son Miles was left brain damaged after a snowboarding accident in the Austrian Alps in 2006, her life was changed forever.

She would spend the next five years watching her gifted, athletic and loved son exist in an agonising state of fluctuating consciousness.

Speaking to London Live, Lu describes the heart-wrenching anguish of watching Miles, who was on the brink of a brilliant future, battle to communicate with his family.

“Hope is the thing that keeps you going,” says Spinney of her anguish during the period after Miles’ accident, “I feel so conscious [while] speaking to you, that someone will be getting that phone call or message.”

Miles died in 2011, five years after his accident.

Now, five years on, Spinney has written a book revealing the suffering of her son, and the slow-dawning recognition by her family that, though Miles had been prevented from dying, he had not been brought back to a meaningful life.

"You're on the seesaw of hope and despair," she says, "but around four years after the accident, we could tell that he was shutting down.

"That last year we really began to address the fact that this wasn't what Miles would have wanted."

Beyond the High Blue Air: A Memoir by Lu Spinney is available to buy now

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