Renowned yet polarizing Australian surgeon Charlie Teo has shed light on the significant impact his medical interventions have had on Paralympic athlete Alexa Leary, following a severe brain injury she sustained in a high-speed cycling accident.
Leary’s parents have shared the harrowing details of her recovery journey, disclosing that she faced a serious struggle with suicidal thoughts and has, at times, become physically aggressive towards them.
In July 2021, during triathlon training on the Sunshine Coast, Leary suffered a dramatic fall from her bike while traveling at 70 km/h.
Despite the lingering effects of her accident, the 24-year-old has remarkably secured two Paralympic gold medals and three world championship titles.
Dr. Teo, who currently faces strict limitations on his medical practice, has been attending to Leary for the past four years. Her family attests to the remarkable progress she has made under his care.
Alexa Leary and her parents say she has turned a corner in her recovery from the horrific bike crash that almost killed her in July 2021
The Learys credit her treatment by controversial surgeon Charlie Teo (pictured) for producing a ‘major change’ in the star athlete
Alexa has defied her traumatic brain injury to win two Paralympic gold medals (pictured) and three world championships titles
Teo remarked that although Leary may appear entirely normal at first glance, people’s perceptions shift dramatically when they learn about her condition, often leading to harsh judgments.
‘There’s something very extreme about her, so disinhibited and so raw,’ Teo told News Corp.
‘She’d say things that maybe we all think but aren’t prepared to say, do things we would all like to do but are not prepared to do.’
The surgeon has been treating Leary with non-invasive transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) after he was restricted from operating on patients after being found guilty of unsatisfactory professional conduct by the Health Care Complaints Commission in 2023.
The ruling came after proceedings were launched against him due to complaints over operations which led to the deaths of two patients.
Alexa’s father Russell credits Teo’s treatments with helping restore her short-term memory, which was destroyed by the crash.
He said his daughter would scream at him and her mother Belinda as she regularly lost things.
‘We’ve seen a major change in her,’ Russell said.
Leary’s parents Russell and Belinda (pictured together with their daughter) have revealed the 24-year-old had a brush with suicide as she battled the effects of the crash
According to Teo, Leary (pictured) lacks inhibitions and would ‘do things we would all like to do but are not prepared to do’
‘She would [yell at us] before, but then she would never say sorry. She now says sorry.
‘Her whole life is changing, and we’re feeling and seeing that in her now.’
‘We can see that she’s kind of navigating her way out of that darkness,’ Belinda added.
‘It’s really enlightening to see how she’s becoming more of the person that she always wanted to be.’
Alexa has been left stunned by Teo’s treatments in the best way possible.
‘I just can’t even believe it because I can feel and know that I’m so much more aware of things and aware of my moods, my anger,’ she said.
In Alexa’s upcoming book Sink or Swim, her mother explained some of the shocking changes in her behaviour since the injury.
‘She became hyper-fixated on everything that was wrong in her life. She didn’t have hair, she didn’t have a driver’s licence, and she didn’t have all the friends she used to,’ Belinda said.
‘You can’t tell Alexa not to do something. She can’t help herself; she has to do it. She has never met a rule she didn’t want to break.
‘As soon as she was told she couldn’t drink [by doctors], she started to drink. At home, if I left my glass of wine on the bench while I went to the bathroom and Lex was around, it would be empty when I got back.
‘Some days, it was taxing. For both her and us.
‘”I hate you. I wish I was dead,” Lex would say during her outbursts. As you would expect, we were seriously concerned about her mental health.
‘Her highs were dizzying, and her lows were ravaging.’
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