Just before Christmas in 2024, 17-year-old Alex Wilson’s life changed in a flash.
A farming accident on his family’s Boonah property caused severe spinal injuries that hospitalised him for six months and left him a paraplegic learning to navigate life in a wheelchair.
Last month however, Alex was back where he felt most at home — among cattle, friends and familiar faces at the Santa Gertrudis National Youth Cattle Camp, the very program where he once achieved the highest honour of Champion Herdsperson.
“Yeah, it’s been real good,” Alex said. “I suppose it has been a lot of catching up and what not … seeing people I haven’t seen for a while.”
For Alex, returning to the camp was about far more than competition.
“I’d say there hasn’t been just one highlight for me, it’s been a mix of everything,” he said.
“Because the camp is great for everyone, it’s just a wealth of knowledge and then, once you sort of move up into the older years, there’s a lot of networking and that type of thing to be done too.
“I think it’s just a really, really great event.“
Alex first attended the camp in 2019 as what he describes as a “naive little kid” who knew little about cattle. Over the years, the camp shaped his skills in stud and commercial judging but also his future ambitions in agriculture.
“I didn’t know much, but it’s definitely taught me a lot. And yeah, there’s just so much opportunity to come out of it. And it definitely does inspire young people a lot, I think, to move into the ag space and that sort of thing.“
Alex’s passion for cattle runs deep. The Wilson family has had Santa Gertrudis cattle for more than 40 years, alongside trading bullocks and, more recently, producing hay.
“We’ve just always found the Santas produced the best carcases so we’ve stuck with them ever since,” he said.
After winning the Champion Herdsperson award in 2023 , Alex took the next step, putting the family’s Santa Gertrudis stud in his own name and he began to build it himself.
Then came the accident.
“Just two days before Christmas in 2024 we were moving round bales and a stack came down,“ Alex said.
“The top one (bale) just caught me in the back and that sent me straight down onto the deck and I got lucky I landed in a spot where none of them crushed me because they’re 300 kilos each but it left me as a paraplegic in a wheelchair.“
The months that followed were the toughest of his life.
“The six months I spent in hospital were hell for me … just not being able to breathe fresh air or see green grass,” he said.
Yet Alex’s mindset never wavered.
“I sort of just picked up the mentality that you can’t go out and say, ‘woe is me’. After a while, you kind of just have to get up and get into it.”
Returning to the family farm became a powerful turning point.
“The first time I went back, I think it was three months into my hospital stay and I got to go out there for a day, it was just so refreshing to breathe fresh air and see something other than concrete and bitumen.
“It was an absolute blessing for me to be able to go back to that property.”
Today, thanks to modified machinery and vehicles, Alex is again helping with stock work.
“About a month ago I got a new Hilux that I got modified, which is a very, very big help as I can actually get around to do stock checks and other odd jobs,” he said.
“We’re still currently in the works of organising a side-by-side and we’ve just started getting engineers to have the tractor modified so I can run that, too.
“There’s so much more technology and acceptance that you can still be useful.“
Alex finished school in November 2025 at McAuley College in Beaudesert and is now planning his next chapter — a dual degree in agriculture and law at the University of New England in Armidale, starting in 2026.
“As far as agriculture goes, I’ll be majoring in crop science, which would lead me to agronomy.
“As far as the law goes, I don’t know if I’ll use it but I know that it’s there and it’s an option.“
For now, though, Alex is focused on reconnecting with the community that helped shape him and showing other young people what resilience truly looks like.
Indeed, last month at the Santa Gertrudis National Youth Cattle Camp – surrounded by cattle and mates – Alex Wilson wasn’t defined by what he’d lost but by the future he’s determined to build.
