Written off after a head injury, Nick became a fighting force for thousands

Nicholas Rushworth

1964-2026

Nick Rushworth began his professional career as a journalist, but it was a near-fatal bicycle accident which set him on a new path as a champion for the 700,000 Australians living with brain injuries.

Riding to his shift as a radio producer at Sydney’s ABC in 1996, Rushworth was hit by a car on Parramatta Road.

“I was catapulted over the bonnet and took the full force of the impact near my right ear. I pretty much fractured my skull right around,” he later said.

Motor vehicle accidents are the second most common cause of traumatic brain injury.

Rushworth’s injuries were severe, and his life hung in the balance.

The accident was “devastating to us at the ABC”, said health broadcaster Dr Norman Swan, who at the time was presenting the Radio National show Life Matters with Geraldine Doogue. Rushworth was their producer.

Swan said he possessed “the sharpest intelligence in the room”. And while he had the necessary calm required in the febrile atmosphere of live radio, “it wasn’t a Valium calm”.

“Beware when Nick got fired up, he could flip into attack. Just what you want in a journalist,” Swan said.

Rushworth’s road to recovery was lifelong and left him with an emotional dysregulation, but he believed he was meant to survive that day to help others.

“Nick had all the stars lined up for the best recovery,” said Dr Reina Michaelson, his wife. His parents were medical professionals: mother Patricia, a gynaecologist, father Robin, a neurosurgeon. His accident was minutes from Camperdown’s Royal Prince Alfred, a major teaching hospital.

Recovering on the ward, what Rushworth witnessed had a profound impact. “He saw young men who had killed half their mates in a car accident, and no one wanted to know them, except their mothers and daughters,” Michaelson said. “He wanted to help them.”

After leaving hospital, Rushworth’s neuropsychologist threw him a bomb. He told him he had probably lost 30 IQ points, “so don’t expect to do the job you had before”.

“He was basically written off,” said Michaelson.

But when he walked out of the appointment, Michaelson said he saw “the most spectacular sunset of his life and thought, ‘that is not me’.”

The only prediction that proved correct was he did not return to journalism. Rushworth volunteered at the small charity Brain Injury Australia and in 2008 became its executive officer, transforming it into Australia’s preeminent brain injury advocacy organisation.

Central to his mission was improving the lived-experiences of his community. He pushed the importance of a no-fault insurance scheme for brain injured people in the NDIS; he spoke of the hidden toll of brain injury in women affected by domestic violence; he recognised the risk mild traumatic brain injury posed for those playing contact and collision sport; he collaborated with veterans campaigning for recognition for brain injury sustained in combat and training; he was a researcher on the government’s Traumatic Brain Injury Initiative; he wrote policy papers; collaborated with national and international scientists, his articles appearing in the scientific journals. He was organising the 10th Australian Brain Injury conference at the time of his unexpected death on January 27, aged 61.

I knew him at the ABC, where you could hear him first, his baritone voice booming down corridors. He was always ready with a fresh insight into the day’s stories.

Years later I got to know him as a freelance journalist specialising in brain injury in sport and was impressed by his verve, knowledge and care. In 2024, at the annual brain injury conference in Adelaide, I asked him why he had chosen to hold it at the historic Adelaide Oval, the home ground of the AFL’s Adelaide Crows.

He looked at me: “Huh? It gave us the best deal … of all the stupid questions I’ve been asked!” he muttered. Then he seized the free kick. “Yes, yes it was a thematic choice! It was to yoke together things around concussion and the treatment of traumatic brain injury, and these cathedrals we build to neurotrauma,” he said, gesturing expansively to the verdant green oval in front of us. “Now that’s f—in’ poetry right there, and I said it, and if you quote it without my name, I will sue you.”

Swan said, “Nick was Brain Injury Australia”. “He moulded it, he was determined to make a difference, and he did.”

“He established a massive network of the top people in Australia and the world on this subject matter,” said former AMA president Dr Mukesh Haikerwal.

Haikerwal, who sustained an acquired brain injury after he was assaulted, rang Rushworth and asked him if he had any resources to help him write thank-you notes to people. He proceeded to recruit Haikerwal as a subject expert onto the BIA board, where he remains today.

Above all, he wanted to be known as a great dad, said Michaelson. He would attend his children, Blake and Madeleine’s Tai Kwon Do events, and always with his laptop.

“He’d sit on the sidelines and watch and support while he would bang away on the keyboard. He destroyed that many keyboards he typed so hard! People would look over at him and say, ‘Who is that man?’”

He attended every training session and game for Blake and when their team, the AFL Inner West Magpies won the 2025 Premiership, it was the proudest moment of his life.

As ever the lived experience of brain injury survivors was to be at the forefront of this year’s conference that Rushworth was organising, with sexual health after brain injury on the agenda. Haikerwal said these topics would frequently cause some discomfort for clinicians, but that did not concern Nick. “He expected high standards, and he let you know if you were lagging,” Haikerwal said.

There has been an outpouring of tributes following his death: “An extraordinary advocate, teacher, friend and mentor”; he “lifted the lid on brain injury”; the “funniest and most charismatic of characters”.

And there were messages from those he had helped in their “darkest moments”. “I recall leaving a message on Nick’s phone, thinking afterwards most likely I will never receive a call back … but I was wrong. Nick made several calls to me when I was at the lowest point in my life.”

“Nick was my lifeline” said another.

Rushworth, as well as working for the ABC, was formerly a producer with Nine’s Sunday program. His journalism won awards, including a Silver World Medal at the 2003 New York Festival, a National Press Club award and TV Week Logie.

Rushworth is survived by Reina, Madeleine 19, and Blake 15, his mother Patricia and siblings Simon, Louise and Sonja. A service will be held at Christ Church St Laurence on February 12.

Wendy Carlisle is a writer and former ABC journalist.