Cor Hutton and Finding Your Feet

Ben McAlary:

Hello and welcome to Ashurst Business Agenda. My name is Ben McAlary, and you are listening to another episode in our Outpacing Change miniseries, where we meet visionaries who are challenging and changing the world around them.

In this episode, I talk to Cor Hutton, quadruple amputee, world record holder, multi-award winner, and motivational speaker. In June 2013, Cor nearly lost her life after suffering acute pneumonia and sepsis. Surgeons were forced to amputate both her hands and her legs below the knee. But she didn't let this setback stop her, and the impact that Cor has had since this trauma is truly remarkable.

Cor went on to establish the charity Finding Your Feet that supports families affected by amputation or limb difference. She's broken four world records and has won countless awards and achievements and amazingly has recently had a double hand transplant in 2019.

This is a conversation you won't want to miss, as Cor shares her lessons and insights into a life that really defines outpacing change and leading from example with courage and compassion. Enjoy the episode.

There's a saying that life is made up of key moments. With your permission, Cor, I'd like to ask you to start our conversation by recounting a particularly difficult moment in your life.

It's June 2013. You're in the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley, and you're battling acute pneumonia and sepsis. You've been given a 5% chance of survival. What happens next?

Cor Hutton:

Quite interesting you've asked me that question, Ben, but that was the point that I wasn't actually there. I have no idea what happened then, but what I can do is tell you the buildup to that, two weeks of a bad cough where you're irritating your colleagues at work and they're telling you to go to the doctor. I've tried all the cross the counter medicines, and I knew I had to get to the doctors and I had to get an antibiotic. I did that on a Friday night. I knew it was a chest infection and that's what had to happen. The doctor was of the same opinion. But the very next day, you find yourself in, exactly as you said that, the Royal Alexandria.

I knew I had a fever. As I was driven there, I knew I had a temperature. It was a very, very hot day in Scotland, which is unusual. I knew I hadn't been feeling well and the temperature together would make you feel that way anyway. I knew it was a bit dizzy and lightheaded. I struggled to get into urgent emergency, only to find that I shouldn't have been there. I should have been at a different part of the hospital. I really struggled to get there. When I arrived at the reception, looking back on it months later, I thought, they didn't even ask my name. They didn't even make me wait. I was just shown straight into a side room.

I guess it was pretty obvious to other people how poorly I was at that time. Just half a dozen words to a consultant then and she put me on a bed. I remember not quite making the bed and falling then. That was lights out for me. I slipped into unconsciousness. The chest infection I now know had mixed with streptococcus, which lives in all of us. The two together is a killer.

Ben McAlary:

What is sepsis? If you can talk through, what are the symptoms of sepsis?

Cor Hutton:

Well, interestingly, I didn't know the first thing about sepsis. It was new to all my family. We've heard of septicemia, but we didn't really know what it was either. Sepsis is not an illness. It's a reaction. You can have any infection of any sort anywhere in your body and it could react in a certain way. It's an over reaction. It panics, it shocks, and it tries to shut down components of the body to protect the vital organs.

And that's exactly what had happened to me. Added to that, as I was fighting hard to die, the consultants were fighting hard to keep me. What they've done is the self-induced coma as well to keep me under, but also circulation drugs to make sure that the oxygenated blood would stay with my vital organs.

Ben McAlary:

How long were you in hospital for?

Cor Hutton:

I was flown down actually. When I was told I wouldn't survive the night and did the first night clearly, the next morning they told my family they'd found this a lifesaving treatment and I'd been accepted onto a program called ECMO. ECMO is Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation. It's basically a machine that takes your blood from your body, oxygenates it, chills it, and pumps it back around your body. It's doing the work of your heart and your lungs basically and giving your body a rest. ECMO in Leicester, after being flown down there by the ambulance, all very exciting, had I known about it. That's what saved my life really there.

I was down there for 10 days, ambulance back up to Paisley, and spent six weeks in intensive care and high dependency there. I was on every kind of machine you could put me on, every single bit of lifesaving equipment. I had the throat machines, the heart machines, the kidney machines, everything, everything. I couldn't eat for myself. Even waste products, I couldn't do any of that for myself. Just gradually as the days went on, I was able to go off one machine after another. Bizarrely, it sounds quite the opposite, but it was a really positive time for me. The A&E nurses, the ICU nurses were just fantastic with me.

Every day I was a medical worker, I was a superhero and how I'd managed to survive this, how I'd managed to go off that machine, how I was improving so quickly. They really led me to believe that I was superhuman, and I was in that state for about... That was a total of six weeks, including those 10 days, at which time they started to change the focus from lifesaving to the other problems that had developed as a result of the lack of circulation. My feet in my hands had started to go blue, maybe purple. They changed a lot.

They were changing constantly. A lot of photos were taken to compare to the day before and things.

My hands were curled up and black, a bit like charcoal, and I think everyone thought there was no chance of saving those. But my feet were quite different. My heels were intact. My feet were changing color a lot, so much so that they thought and told me that they would test and treat and try to save them, but I had to move to a different hospital. I was moved to Glasgow Royal at that point, at the end of the six weeks. Imagine what I've left there in Paisley as this ward where they tell me I'm superhuman and I'm wonderful. They've seen me going from near death, really almost dead, seen me survive, seen me come back.

They've met my family. They've met my young son, my four-year-old. They've got me through all of that. Then you've transferred to this new hospital where nobody knows you and what they have is a bundle of facts on paper. The first morning in Glasgow Royal, I had the doctor's rounds at the end of my bed. There's a consultant and a couple of registrars there. You know them because they're casually dressed. I knew the uniforms, so I knew there was an OT there. I knew there was an auxiliary nurse there. I knew there was the head nurse there. So many different people at the end of my bed that I'd never met before.

They didn't know me. This is about quarter to 8:00 in the morning, so you're still quite drowsy. I was still really, really weak, still really trying to get my health back to a manageable stage. This consultant spoke to all of this team and said, "Ms. Hutton is going to lose her hands and her legs this week." They all went on to discuss how that was going to happen and where it was going to happen, how the procedures would take place, and all lasted about 20 minutes or so at the end of my bed. All I'd heard was, "She's going to lose her hands on her feet." This was news to me. I didn't know anything about this.

I don't know if you can imagine how that might feel to be told this when you think you're there to be tested and to try and find some cure, to find somebody who's going to save your legs, and suddenly it's a done deal. You didn't about it, and you've got no opinion or nobody's asked your opinion. Nobody's even addressing you. It was a real rough time. I've spoken to several of them about it since. And to be fair, I think they just didn't know that I didn't know. They didn't know to be cautious and careful about that kind of information. But yeah, that was a bit shocking.

Ben McAlary:

Oh, absolutely. Could only imagine your emotions during this time. Did you get a second opinion? The news broke to you rather harshly, but what was the next step after that?

Cor Hutton:

I come from a very pushy, determined family, and they moved into high productivity trying to find a second opinion, a third opinion, the best person in the country for this kind of thing, somebody that would be pioneering and try something different. After all those opinions, it turned out that the original prognosis was the same with all of them. What we had to do is then work out the best way to do it and how much could be saved, what was the ultimate place for amputation. I fortunate at that point had found Professor Hart, thought to be the best in the Western Scotland. He had agreed to take on my case.

I'm so grateful he did, because he had the foresight to see beyond the amputations. A lot of surgeons will just remove it at the cleanest point. Prof removed only what was dead, and that meant he removed skin, but not the tissue below it. He removed half bones rather than right up to the wrist. He left me with anything at all that was viable, and he was forward-thinking. He'd been involved in hand transplants, and what he was trying to do was save as much of my hands as was possible to make the transplant later easier. At the time, when he talked to me about hand transplant, I was very much against it.

I'd just been through something like 13 different surgical operations. I felt my body had let me down. I felt my immune system had let me down. When you get a transplant, you're on immune suppressants for the rest of your life, and that meant your immune system's low. It hadn't survived very well in my mind, and I didn't think I wanted to go down that route. But he was still very careful of what he removed and he used tissue from my thighs and my arms to cover the exposed flesh. I had partial hands. I was cut off through the palm, and I had a very small knuckle that would've been my thumb on both hands.

That was really handy for pressing buttons or operating a smartphone or flushing a toilet and things that you wouldn't think about. Instead of just being cut off at the wrists, I was left with tools to help me get independent again.

Ben McAlary:

Amazing. Obviously the foresight that that surgeon had made a huge difference to you later on. We'll talk about your hand transplants a little bit later. Just wondering whether we could just circle back now and just briefly touch on your life before all this happened. What did you do and what were you involved in back then?

Cor Hutton:

It's quite funny, and I do like to think back the changes in me, and actually the truth is there's very little. I think I'm still the person I was back then. I'm still cheeky and pushy and determined. At the point of illness, I was running a small company with six staff, and I had a four-year-old at nursery. You're just trying to juggle that in the house. I was the type that had to be perfect at everything. I put myself under a huge amount of pressure to juggle them all.

Ben McAlary:

What was the first step on your way to setting up Finding Your Feet? We know that Finding Your Feet was established by you, a charity that supports families affected by amputation and/or limb difference. Where did that come about? Where's the origin story?

Cor Hutton:

Well, again, pushy family. I'm lying in hospital feeling utterly useless and utterly worthless. I've got two pushy brothers, and my mom and dad gratefully have been in business and they're pushy as well. They I guess thought, she needs a purpose. Returning to the job I had was starting to sound quite difficult. And given that I had a lot of pressure in it, they just thought I needed a focus. I didn't know what I could become. I didn't know what I'd be able to achieve, and nobody really could fill in those blanks for me. The National Health Service in the UK is absolutely phenomenal. I love them. They couldn't have been nicer.

They made me laugh when it didn't seem there was much to laugh about. They were brilliant, but they'd never been in my position and they didn't know how to do things, even practical things like eating my breakfast or helping me get dressed. They didn't know what to suggest. We thought wouldn't it be good if you could just help people fill in those blanks? There was one other quadruple amputee who came to see my family, but she wouldn't come and see me. She said I would want to punch her because she was doing so well. When you're lying in hospital feeling that useless, that's not a good thing.

I, on the other hand, think I would've really appreciated a visit like that. I think I would've appreciated seeing somebody coping and being able to come and see me in hospital. I think that would've been a real positive for me. When my brother suggested it, he thought, "Yeah, let's see if we can set up a charity."

Ben McAlary:

Finding Your Feet started as peer support network of individuals that have this shared experience that are there supporting one another, which is unbelievable and the amount of growth that it's had. Where did it go from then, because I know that it's now much more than that?

Cor Hutton:

What happened when we were meeting just on a small scale, one of my friends, who's a Pilates instructor, had suggested that we should all be doing Pilates and it would be very good for our core strength. She put on a Pilates class for us, tortured us all and tried to build the core strength that makes us all stand upright. Of course, it's very, very important to amputees, particularly if you've been curled up in hospital like I was. Then she taught me to unfold and use your spine to stand tall. After that, there was a swimming instructor who offered their services.

We all got in the pool, and it really just developed organically from there, where we were formally arranging those swimming lessons and formally arranging gym sessions. There's always been an amputees instead of a coffee morning because I'm far too young to have coffee mornings. We have amputees. That's quite a team where you just come along and have a coffee and a cake in a blether to everything in between. Really we just started from my point of view, I want to do something exciting and something different, maybe something I haven't done before, but certainly something that pushes me.

But I realized that not everybody's like that. For some people, it's like climbing a mountain just to get out their home in the morning and just to get to one of our clubs. We need to recognize that as well. Hopefully we have everything in between now as well, where there's arts and crafts and sports and darts and archery and things that are not too energetic, right up to skiing and climbing walls. So many different things. It's just grown and hopefully there's something there for everybody.

Ben McAlary:

Well, certainly you do and have done a lot more than Pilates and swimming lessons. You obviously scratched an itch. Have you always been an adventurous person? Because you know what my next question's going to be, and it's going to be around talk me through your four world records.

Cor Hutton:

I think I bore easily. I think I need to keep entertained, and I quite like pushing myself. Certainly I think there's more in it now. There's a real arch to do something that people tell me not to do or people think I can't do. My mother tells me everything can't be done. She tells me I shouldn't be doing anything that I do. And if I listen to her, I wouldn't have achieved anything. But she is a worrying mom and I guess I do put myself in situations that could potentially be slightly unsafe or not easy on myself. As to the four world records, we've played on that a bit as well.

One event that we put on in an island just off the coast of Scotland in Millport was to cycle around the island and get families involved and get all the kids involved. But we wanted to make it a bit more exciting, so we tried to work out how we could set a world record. Other things I didn't realize until I'd done it. The Ben Nevis hadn't been done by female amputees before. I was halfway up Kilimanjaro when the coach that I was with told me they found out it'd never been done by a female quadruple amputee before either. I didn't really set out to have those goals or to achieve those things. Kilimanjaro, for one, was just something on my bucket list.

I'd done the London Triathlon because a friend of mine was the sponsor and he'd said, "Would you not like to do it?" I said, "There's not a chance I can do a triathlon." He said, "There's this little one." I don't know if most people know this, but triathlons are big, big event, but there's always smaller options and there's a... Sorry, Glasgow freezer. There's a tiny, tiny triathlon you can do where you do a really small run and a really small cycle and a really small swim. My friend talked me in into doing that. I thought, right, okay, I'll do that. I'll go to London and I'll swim in the 10s, and I'll cycle for 10K, and I'll run for 5k.

I'm sure I can manage that. It was quite a big deal for the sponsors, quite real big deal for the triathlon itself to have this quadruple amputee doing that, I suppose. I was trying to do it for some publicity for Finding Your Feet. All around people wanted to talk to me about it. Just before the race, as I was sitting on the side of the teams ready to go, they stuck a camera in my face and decided to have an interview. I missed the gunshot. I missed the start. Everybody in my section in the race took off while I was still answering questions. By the time I was let loose, I was on my own. Everybody had swung off, and I panicked.

I'd done quite a lot of training in Loch Lomond. I'd brought a wetsuit and I'd tried hard to master this outdoor swimming. It is particularly different from swimming in a pool when you get brain freeze by putting your head in the water for the start. In Loch Lomond in the winter, it's not great. I'd trained quite a lot, got to London. Again, very kindly in this one, had given me a free wetsuit, which was very nice of them and a very good one. So much better than the one I bought, just the very cheap one. I thought, okay, let's swim in that, didn't realize how much difference that would make to the position in the water.

It really threw me. What had happened was that it was a full length wetsuit that had cut a bit off just to cope with the short legs. It was particularly buoyant. What it did is lifted my body and my legs out of the water. Particularly because I didn't have the weight of my feet in my lower legs, my legs were right out the water, my face was right down in the water, and it just made the panic and the anxiety much worse. I couldn't get a breath. I couldn't swim. I couldn't do a stroke because I got into such a panic. Probably one of my first experiences of a panic attack. At that point, you're in the Thames, it's not a great time to do that.

I really had to just battle through it. There was nowhere around it. I had to see this through. I had to just keep swimming. Breaststroke didn't get me anywhere. It was just like staying still. I just had to work through it. I finally finished my swim, but I got off at a JT that I wasn't supposed to get off at, didn't run over the match with my tag on, ran off to my bike. Meanwhile, my brother in Dubai thinks I've drowned. Three hours later, I'm still in the Thames. What's going on? It was a bit of a panic. I went on to finish the triathlon. I'm really pleased myself. What that did for me I think was really take away my confidence.

It's not something I've ever struggled with is being confident. I've always felt I could do anything I wanted to do. It's what I preach in Finding Your Feet. We can get you there. It might be different. You might need to do it in a different style, but we'll get you there. And at that point, I thought, maybe I'm wrong, maybe I can't do everything. I knew I had Kilimanjaro up ahead. I knew I had committed to doing that, and I started to think, I can't do it. There's 12 other people on this trip with me, all able-bodied. I'm going to get all the attention. They're going to have to stop and start from me. I'm going to hold them all back.

They're not going to enjoy their time there. My whole confidence just went and I pulled out of Kilimanjaro. I pulled out and thought, I'm just going to let them do it. At the same time, when you're minded the way I am, I've got a serious case of FOMO. The team were going on and chatting and banting. They're talking about their kit, and they're having training weekends and things. I just got lower and lower and lower thinking about how I was missing out. I suppose just one day I thought, you're not even trying. You've given up and you're not even trying. How does that trigger? Wouldn't it be better to go and try and potentially fail than not even try?

At that point I thought, yeah, okay, sign back up for it again. And with a bit of luck on my side and blood, sweat and tears as well, we all got to the top of Kilimanjaro. As I said before, I didn't know that was a record. What was also interesting about that trip though, it's very, very rare for the whole team to make it. There's usually altitude problems and things, and every single one of us summited. Every single one of us. I was so chatted about that, so pleased, thrilled. Somebody pointed out that we're not going to say we can't do it our way.

We're not going to say I'm not doing it today, I'm not going today, when you're getting up and putting your legs on and fighting up that hill. I suppose instead of holding people back, maybe I pushed them on without realizing it. Maybe I inspired them to get up and go on with it.

Ben McAlary:

Incredible stories. I particularly like the fact that you're halfway up Mount Kilimanjaro and you're already thinking about your next world record. That's quite amazing. Your willpower is just phenomenal. You've spoken about the challenges that you've had, the obstacles, the self-doubt and the setbacks during your world record attempts. But just flipping that and switching that over to Finding Your Feet, what has been the biggest obstacles in that space that you've had to overcome?

Cor Hutton:

Well, I'm not the one who was the most organized person. When I first set the charity up and people were being very kind and there's donations coming from everywhere, the place wanted to talk to me. There's a lot of media attention. There's a lot of social media things going on. You have to thank everybody. You've got the paperwork. You've got the accounts. You've got the rules of the charity and the laws surrounding charities. I was really worried then that I was dropping a few of the organizational balls, so got someone to help me just a day a week with organization and an admin, who very quickly became so important in my life for doing everything administratively.

Nicola is now the CEO of the charity. She does everything disciplined and organized and keeps us straight and right. She organizes the management of the staff and leaves me to go off and be the face of the charity. I suppose the one that brags three things and gets people to do things for us, like Ashurst have done in the past. They were very, very generous to us, and that's my role in getting us in the public eye, getting us the media attention. Nicola and I work very well together and that she would never dream of doing anything publicity wise or talking to people or doing an interview like this.

She's just a better back office, making sure everything runs well. I'm very grateful for that. The team that is Finding Your Feet, the hard doors are it's a charity and we can't afford big salaries. We can't pay out a lot of money. We're always trying to do things on the cheap or free. But fortunately, there's a lot of companies out there now that want to help. Lots of companies giving staff charity days, volunteering days, and there's lots of companies that want to be philanthropic and delete and help where they can.

Ben McAlary:

Surrounding yourself with the right people that doing the right job.

Cor Hutton:

Knowing what you're good at and what you're not good at.

Ben McAlary:

We reached the part of the episode where I'm going to ask you some quick fire questions. Cor, are you ready?

Cor Hutton:

Go on.

Ben McAlary:

How would your colleagues describe you in three words?

Cor Hutton:

Pushy, determined, load.

Ben McAlary:

If you could have a coffee meeting with any leader, alive or dead, who would it be?

Cor Hutton:

Nelson Mandela.

Ben McAlary:

What is the biggest myth or misconception about your industry?

Cor Hutton:

Disabled. I think it should be less-abled.

Ben McAlary:

When it comes to generating new ideas, are you a morning person or an evening person?

Cor Hutton:

Morning.

Ben McAlary:

And finally, name one book or podcast that you'd recommend for a business leader.

Cor Hutton:

I think probably an autobiography. I liked Barack Obama's particularly. There's lots of fights there that he won.

Ben McAlary:

Excellent. Cor, take us through the phone call you received on the 7th of January 2019 and how that has changed you.

Cor Hutton:

Okay, I waited five years for that phone call. I had 10 false alarms where they'd found an owner and then the blood typing failed. I'd been up and down a lot with that. I got to the point where really the phone call didn't even matter. I was a bit blase about it, because I knew they would then go off and do tests and I'd have to wait. I think eventually they stopped phoning me when there was a chance of a donor, until that phone call where they had done all the blood tests by the time they phoned me. My reaction was, again, quite blase. It was, well, off you go and do the test. They said, "No, we've done them."

I said, "Okay, what else needs done?" They said nothing. I said, "So, when will I know if it's going ahead?" They said, "It's going ahead, and literally we've got an ambulance coming for you." I'd completely forgotten. After five years, I'd forgotten what the protocol was. I'd forgotten what I needed to do and what I needed to take. My overnight bag that had been packed for years had been unpacked and put away. I panicked a bit and had to sort my son out for school the next day, get him away to an aunt, get my bag packed again, and then the ambulance was sitting at the door. It was more panic than anything else.

The poor ambulance driver, for the next four hours, she drove me to Leeds. She got my full life story. She's actually a friend now, which is nice. She didn't disown me or never want to talk to me again. Quite an interesting conversation. It's such a huge operation, such a huge team. I had 12 surgeons in the operating theater for 12 hours with me. As soon as I woken up, I had fingers that could move. It was just incredible. It's such a huge operation, and I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful to them, and I'm so grateful to the donor and the family that were brave enough to put themselves on the organ donation list and allow this to happen. I'll never forget her.

Ben McAlary:

There's no doubting the impact and radical change brought about through your campaigning and the tremendous work that Finding Your Feet have achieved in the world of sepsis, organ donation, and the list goes on. What advice would you share with others looking to make a difference and deliver radical change?

Cor Hutton:

I don't think we push enough what difference it makes. To me, for example, in this case, the difference it makes to me to help other people. It might sound selfless, but it's actually almost selfish, it's me taking my mind off myself. I think that's a huge way of staying grounded and real. I think we could all do that more often, listening to other people, putting yourself in other people's positions, trying to imagine what life might be like in someone else's position. And maybe don't take life too seriously.

Ben McAlary:

That's some great advice. Cor, you've shared some truly amazing stories today. I just want to thank you and honor you actually for the great humility, courage, and attitude that you've shown. It's truly inspiring, and I'm sure that this conversation has and will resonate with a lot of people. Thanks for joining me.

Cor Hutton:

Thank you.

Ben McAlary:

Thank you for listening to Ashurst Business Agenda. This episode has been part of our special Outpacing Change miniseries, where we speak with innovators and disruptors who are changing and challenging the world around them. To make sure you don't miss any future episodes, subscribe to Business Agenda on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And while you're there, feel free to leave us a rating and a review. Until next time, thanks for listening and goodbye for now.