Cumbrian motocross star Brad Todd: I know I'm insanely lucky still to be able to walk

Time passes slowly. "Honestly, the Xbox is keeping me sane right now," he says. "When I'm healthy, I don't touch the thing."

Todd may be exasperated by his enforced period away, but knows not to complain too much, since it could have been far, far worse. The fall he suffered at the Apex track in Worcester did not feel like it had life-changing potential, but examinations since then have revealed the full, precarious extent.

"I've seen the x-ray, and basically it's hanging on by a thread," says Todd of the fractures to his C6 vertebrae in the base of his neck. "If that broke, it would have been game over for me - paralysed from the chest down."

This dramatic knowledge cautions Todd to be patient in spite of his eagerness to resume a promising career in a thrilling sport. It is further startling when Todd explains that, initially believing he had suffered nothing worse than whiplash, the "thread" in his spine could have snapped at any time by a simple jerk of the head over the following few days.

He describes the accident vividly. "It was a cold morning, frosty, the track had been prepped, but the ground was still hard," he says. "You have a couple of sighting laps to have a look, and then the third one I went a bit quicker. I came down this hill, then a left, then back up the hill, and my back end just hit the ice and gripped.

"So the track's now going one way, and I'm facing sideways. I got thrown off and went from 40mph to zero, all on my head."

It sounds brutal, but being pitched from the bike is nothing new to a motocross rider - and Todd did not fear the worst. "I've had a lot of crashes, and a lot when you know it's gonna hurt before you've landed. But this one was just…weird. It was a shock, and everything just stopped for a second, but I didn't feel any pain straight away. My first instinct was just to get back up and back on."

Todd indeed completed two further laps, not knowing his future mobility was at such serious risk. Later sent away from a local hospital with painkillers, believing they would cure the stiffness in his neck, Todd was similarly examined and diagnosed in Carlisle five days on. "Because they'd heard about how it had happened, the guy there at the last minute said, 'I'll just go and check with my boss,' and came back and said they'd do an x-ray, just in case. When the results came back, we all got a shock."

Todd spent four more days in hospital before being allowed home on Christmas Eve. His period of recovery has denied him the chance to step up his performances for the I-Fly JK Yamaha team, with whom he recently signed a two-year deal, but he says they and his sponsors have been supportive - while he says his injury has not given him reservations about resuming his career in, he hopes, about three months' time.

"If I did get upset by it, and thought about it when I was riding, I wouldn't be a good rider," he says. "It's the sport I love and I don't think anything will change that."

Todd's fearless devotion to motocross has been challenged by even tougher events. It is nearly three years now since he witnessed the death of his cousin, Lee Tolson, in a race at Low Gelt, near Brampton. "That's him, in the picture," Todd says, pointing to a photo of Lee's wedding to Joanne that hangs on the wall in the Todds' front room.

Lee was 26 when he came off his Yamaha and was hit by another competitor. He died in hospital the following day. "I was next to him, coming down the hill," Todd says. "I don't really know what happened but something went wrong, he landed in the dirt and someone behind ran over him."

Todd had earlier explained how Lee and his brother Shane, both talented riders, were his inspirations in the sport. How, then, did Lee's death affect him?

"It was hard, ridiculously hard," he says. "Because I was racing for a team in Scotland, I had to go up there straight after the funeral. It was awful for me being away, knowing everyone here was all upset. For a while, that was it for me. I wasn't bothered about riding."

Todd says he did not, in the end, quit motocross, partly because of Lee. "He kept me going. I know, if it was up to Lee, he wouldn't say not to do it. Shane was competing that day too. He actually started back riding last year, after a couple of years off. He's loving it again. All we think about now is making Lee proud."

Does he carry thoughts of his cousin onto the circuit now? "If I turn up at an awesome track that I'd not seen before, I sometimes think, 'He would love this'. When you go round the track as fast as you can, you can't think about what happened. But he does pop up in your mind now and again.

"It was an awful thing, I'm gonna miss him, and it probably happened to the nicest lad in the family. Every Christmas, every birthday, I'm thinking of my auntie Paula and my uncle Barry. As a family, we have always bounced back up, but that hit everyone hard. In the end, you've got to move forward. I don't like saying that. But it's reality."

It is moving to hear a man as young as Todd explain such a complex blend of emotions, but he says his family have never discouraged him from his passion, one which has steadily flourished. A shelf in the corner of the lounge holds several trophies, including one of his proudest, marking his third-placed finish in the 2017 MAXXIS British Championship MX2 Round One.

Signed last year by his current team after a storming performance in Italy, and subsequently making his Grand Prix debut, Todd then beat some established riders in the Bologna Supercross. That appeared to set him up for a potentially lucrative Arenacross series, until his Worcester accident.

This pause in his progress leads him to reflect on how far he has come, and the support he has received. "My mam and dad worked all the hours they could," he says. "My mam's a care worker and would do 6am to 9pm at times. My dad's a tarmacer and he would even do 24-hour shifts, before health and safety stopped you doing that. All they want is to see me doing well. They went through debt and stuff, and there were arguments over it. The year Lee died was the year my dad was helping me a lot as well. There was a lot of stress and I was close to quitting.

"There came a point when I said, 'this is the last time I take a penny from you. I'm gonna do this on my own and make a living from it'. The last thing I want to do is go to my dad and ask to borrow fifty quid for a tank of fuel. With the team I'm on now, I don't need to worry about that, and I want to keep that up as long as I can. If there comes a time when I can't, I just won't do it at the same level. I'll work, and do it at weekends for fun."

I ask Todd to explain why his love of motocross is so profound, and he smiles. "The best feeling I have is being on a bike and going as fast as I can. Some people like watching horror movies. I just love getting on a bike and trying to almost scare myself.

"The scaring yourself part is mostly on a race day, 'cos there are 40 of you on a start line, and you've all got to set off as quick as possible. That is the thrill. But if you want to win, you've got to practice, and get used to that fear factor."

He will be in good company when he eventually returns. Asked about other childhood heroes, Todd says: "There's one I'm really good mates with now, Brad Anderson. Number one motocrosser in the UK. He would put his life on the line to win a championship. I looked up to him, and I now ride and train with him all the time. He's 36 and there's not many motocrossers at his age. Thirty is the age where you normally draw the line.

"I was 16 when I met him. I was a little **** at that age and we hated each other for a few years. But we got closer through the biking and got our senses of humour together. When we're racing, I know I need to be faster than him and he'll think the same."

Todd would like there to be more exposure for a such an exhilarating pursuit. "If you google it, it is down as the most physically demanding sport in the world. You've got to be fit - swimming, cycling running. I'm doing heavy, 130-kilo squats.

"It would be good if it did go bigger. A lot of motocrossers go to speedway, because that's where the money is. I'm good mates with Chris Cook, who went that way. They do about six or eight minutes riding on a bike, and we do two hours, and not get a quarter of the money. But it's just the way it is."

Todd talks more about his dreams, of more Grands Prix, of trying to be European champion, of earning enough money to buy houses and be comfortable in retirement. "As a kid, my goal was just to do this full-time. I've gone past that, so now I want to be one of the best in the world," he says. "That would be something else to tell the grandkids."

He then fingers his neck brace and is brought back to the present. While he has considered seeking second medical opinions, including the option of having his x-rays sent to experts who assess spinal injuries to England rugby players and Olympic athletes, realism must remain.

"I know I have to be 100 per cent before I can think about going back on a bike," he says. "Until then, I'm just trying to eat healthy. I don't want to get back on the bike and be 20 stone.

"I'm just trying to be sensible while I've got this thing on, which is hard for me. I can be an idiot as soon as it's healed."

There will indeed come a time, later this year, when Todd's bike is speeding back around a track and it will pay not to think too hard about how close he came to spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair. "I sometimes forget," he says. "But there are people in situations a lot worse than me. I know I am insanely lucky."