Australia’s most controversial surgeon Charlie Teo has opened up about the difference his treatments have made to Paralympics star Alexa Leary after she suffered a traumatic brain injury in a high-speed cycling crash.
Her parents have also detailed the shocking extent of her health battle, revealing she had a close call with suicide and has physically attacked them.
Leary fell off her bike while travelling at 70km/h as part of triathlon training on the Sunshine Coast in July 2021.
She was flown by a LifeFlight helicopter to the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital where she received intensive treatment for a severe traumatic brain injury that almost killed her.
The 24-year-old has since won two Paralympic gold medals and three world championship titles as she battles the ongoing effects of the crash.
Now Teo – who is currently operating under severe restrictions on his ability to practise medicine – has been treating Leary on a regular basis for four years and her family say the results have been startling.
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 said that while the sport star appears completely normal when you meet her, people become ‘very judgmental’ when they realise the truth.
‘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.’
If you or anyone you know needs support, you can contact Lifeline 131 114, or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636
