‘I could have been killed stone dead’ - Tom O'Ryan

But, surprisingly, the strongest feeling at the moment is one of guilt.

It’s barely six weeks since the 58-year-old, the racing tipster for The Press newspaper among many other strings to his bow, was almost killed when he was hit in the back by a flying fence post while cutting the grass at his Brawby home.

Tape had become tangled in cutters attached to a tractor and when the post hit him at speed it shattered his pelvis and crushed vertebrae in his back.

O’Ryan is currently in the middle of a six-week stint confined to a wheelchair, wearing a body brace throughout the day, and on super-strong painkillers to dull the ache as his bones slowly mend.

He has had more than 150 cards wishing him well and, after the Yorkshire Air Ambulance played a vital part in his survival when initially ferrying him to hospital, he will recount his ordeal on TV screens in October to help raise awareness for the charity.

So it’s a measure of the man that, in the midst of his own rehabilitation, he feels guilt – his conscience pricked that he is on the road to recovery while jockey Brian Toomey remains in a serious condition in hospital after suffering life-threatening head injuries in a fall at Perth.

“To be honest, I do feel guilty,” he said. “I’m talking about my injury when Brian Toomey is fighting for his life. He has got a long way to go. I will mend. Please God, get well Brian.

“He was here about five days before that fall at Perth.”

With Toomey now having moved out of intensive care, and his mother, Marian, reporting that “steady progress” has been made, it is hoped that, like O’Ryan, he can start the long road to recovery.

And it is a long road for both men.

To talk to him on the phone, O’Ryan sounds as chipper as ever. There is the familiar energy in the voice along with the quick wit.

But while recognising how far he has come in such a short space of time, it also masks the path that still lies ahead.

“There are times when I am getting on all right and people think ‘Tom’s doing okay’ but I am frustrated I can’t do a bit more,” he explained.

“Twice a day I will have to have a lie down and I get tired. Sixteen hour days were the norm for me and that’s what I loved. That’s totally changed now – hopefully just temporarily.

“I am just so fortunate. I have been very unlucky but very, very lucky at the same time. I could have been paralysed. I could have had head injuries. I could have been killed stone dead.”

Luck certainly played its part.

Floored by the impact, O’Ryan was not only able to get his hands on his phone – to call his partner, Wendy, in the house – but had a signal at the same time. In rural Ryedale, something as simple as that was far from a certainty.

He said: “There are so many ifs and buts and I keep reminding myself that I am so grateful to be alive.

“The signal can be 50/50 and, if I am doing a job in the field, I don’t usually take it because I like to get away from it all for an hour.

“It was in my inside pocket too. If it had been in my trouser pocket I would not have been able to get to it. I couldn’t have bent my leg to get it out. I can’t tell you how fortunate I am.”

“Hand on heart, I did think it was bad,” he continued. “I have never been in that situation before and, when Wendy came down, I had thought it was just muscular and thought that, if I could get onto my knees, I could try to get up.

“Wendy says I did manage to get on my knees but the pain was unbelievable and it quite quickly developed into something a bit serious.

“It all became a bit of a blur. I know it took a long time to stablise me and the tell-tale sign for the air ambulance that I had broken a few bones was that my blood pressure dropped so quickly. It does that because there is a lot of internal bleeding.

“I never want to feel like that again. They couldn’t give me any painkillers at the start because they needed to stabilise me.”

They say that such life-changing events can provide new perspective and O’Ryan agrees that this has been true in his case.

He will, hopefully, soon be on his way to Oaksey House, in Lambourn, to continue his recovery at the rehabilitation centre managed by the Injured Jockeys’ Fund.

Northern riders will, in the not too distant future, have such facilities on their own doorstep when Jack Berry House comes into being in Malton.

O’Ryan has already been a keen proponent of the latter and, through his participation in the Leger Legends race at Doncaster, has helped raise thousands of pounds towards its planning.

He had been due to ride again in September but, obviously, will have to miss out this time around.

But he is still urging people to continue to donate money to the scheme and also to the Yorkshire Air Ambulance, by contributing online or by attending the Malton Stables Open Day on August 25.

On his upcoming TV appearance, highlighting the work of the ambulance crews, O’Ryan said: “I never had anything in my mind to say ‘no’ to that. If it helps them, I’ll do it. It was a potentially life-threatening situation for me and it’s hard to think about it like that.

“It is scandalous that the Air Ambulance is a charity and that people have got to raise money for it and it is only just a drop in the ocean.

“I’ve made the phone call to Dale Gibson and the organisers of the Leger Legends race to say that I wouldn’t be able to ride this year but I am still imploring people to donate and to raise money for Jack Berry House.

“The Malton Stables Open Day is also raising money for the Air Ambulance and people can help by attending that.”

Anyone who wants to donate to the Yorkshire Air Ambulance can do so by logging on to www.yorkshireairambulance.org.uk