Ned Buckell put life-threatening infection and hip replacement aged 20 behind him to return to running
Posted Wed 9 Sep 2026 at 10:23amWed 9 Sep 2026 at 10:23amWed 9 Sep 2026 at 10:23am
The doubts that occasionally flit across Ned Buckell’s mind are likely to be familiar to runners whatever standard they’re at.
Buckell’s story is different to most, though.
A life-threatening infection as a teenager.
A year-and-a-half on crutches.
Another serious infection just when it felt like things were on track, resulting in a hip replacement before he was 21.
And a race number from the 2016 Melbourne Marathon Festival pinned to his wall, reminding him that there is still a destination to reach despite the darkness.
“There’s definitely been times when you think to yourself, what am I doing this for?” Buckell tells ABC Sport.
“Why am I still trying to get back running at a reasonably high level?
“I think the biggest thing is because I knew I would do it.
“Those thoughts always creep into my mind like, ‘Why am I still going? You’re not going to get the most out of it,’ but I can get the most out of what I can, and I’ve always told myself I can.
“That’s probably why I haven’t given up.
“Even though there’ve been countless times when you want to, when you keep getting struck down, there are signs, and the universe is telling you to stop.
“You have to just sort of not ignore them, but just push them aside and prove that it’s not.”
‘If it had gone any further, then that would have been the end of me’
Buckell was always going to be a runner.
His dad, John, was a runner and both Ned and his twin brother, Matt, would tag along to cross-country races around Bendigo and run from the age of five.
Theirs was an early introduction to the lung-busting freedom that a pair of trainers and the open trails of the countryside can afford.
“Me, my twin brother and my two older brothers were all always very competitive,” Buckell says.
“That turned us into sporty individuals that always want to be better than each other.
“I’ve always been a runner, but it wasn’t until maybe 14 or maybe 13 where I quit footy and was trying to focus on it a bit more.
“I knew me and my brother had some sort of talent, that we could take it to the next level.
“My twin brother has done that, but I haven’t. I’ve just been struck down with this, really.”
Buckell’s issues all stem back to an infection he got when he was 14 years old, just after he turned to running seriously.
“The night it all happened, I was playing basketball with my mates at his house,” Buckell recalls.
“It was a warm September night, the boys were in shorts and T-shirts, and I was in trackies and a hoodie, I was getting these fevers.
“We were all thinking that something’s not right, so I rode home with Matt and then the fevers got really bad.”
Buckell’s parents were away, so it was up to his Nan and Pop to take him to the local GP, who initially diagnosed a twisting hernia, with Buckell struggling to stand due to the pain.
The GP sent Ned to a specialist, who instantly transferred him to the emergency department, where the scale of Buckell’s issue became terrifyingly clear.
A staph infection had entered Ned’s hip, driving up his temperature to dangerous levels.
“I ended up getting four hip washouts; three in Bendigo, which had no effect, basically, and then they sent me to the Royal Children’s Hospital for another one,” Buckell says.
The then-14-year-old spent the next three-and-a-half weeks in hospital, fortunate to be alive.
“I was on the cardiac ward because the infection had spread to my heart,” Buckell explains.
“If it had gone any further, then that would have been the end of me.
“I never realised how severe it was, probably until now that I’ve finished my degree.”
‘Sometimes it’s impossible to see that light’
Ned was discharged from hospital just in time to celebrate his 15th birthday.
It was a bittersweet moment.
The teenager spent the next 18 months on crutches, “torture” for a kid who described himself as “one of the most active that you’d meet”.
“There were times that I, you know, I’m very lucky that I’ve had a supportive family,” Ned says, understandably struggling to find the words to recall what had been a horrendous time.
“If I hadn’t had that support around me, I definitely wouldn’t be here today.
“There were times when you just wanted a way out.
“I knew that I couldn’t do that, but watching all my brothers start work, play their sports … I was never jealous, but I was so sad all the time about missing out.
“It was extremely tough. You wouldn’t wish that upon anyone, really.”
Buckell says he gets goosebumps talking about this period of his life, underlining what a tough topic it is to address even 10 years on.
But despite all the darkness, Ned says that he always kept an optimistic mindset, something which he knows helped him a lot.
“It has been pretty important just to try to find the good in things,” Buckell says.
“It’s a hard topic for me to talk about, but it’s something that I’ve acknowledged, and I’m just grateful to be where I’m at right now, to be honest.
“I know everyone battles their own shit, and I think the way I’ve looked at it all is there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel.
“And sometimes it’s impossible to see that light. And sometimes it’s not there.
“But you just have to keep going forward and pushing through.
“It’s hard, but I think talking about it does help me try to word things a little bit better.”
Running is ‘just something I do’
The positivity was tested in 2022 when, having fought his way back to a high level, running 14:42 at the Bendigo 5km Frenzy to break a local under-20 record, his hip started playing up again.
He was diagnosed with avascular necrosis, the death of bone tissue due to a lack of blood flow.
Surgery couldn’t fix it, leading to a hip replacement and yet more time watching the rest of the world run away from him.
“I think it comes from within,” Buckell says of his perseverance.
“It’s something inside of me that hasn’t allowed me to give up at all, me knowing that I’m capable of more.”
Buckell can sometimes forget that he has a new hip as he runs, finding the same freedom that he had as a child chasing his two older brothers and his twin.
He describes the hip replacement as being “life-changing”.
The reminders that things are different come afterwards, when the muscles that had to be so violently contorted to insert the new joint begin to ache.
But that’s not enough to stop him.
“I feel like I don’t reflect enough on it afterwards,” Buckell says of his relationship with running now.
“I did a race the other week, and I won it, and people like my Nan and Pop cried to me on the phone and told me how proud they are, and I forget to realise everything that I’ve been through.
“I really do have to reflect deeply on how much I’ve actually endured and overcome. But for me, it’s just like something that you do without thinking about it.”
Perhaps running is just a part of him?
“It is, yeah,” Buckell says.
“And I don’t need to over complicate it more than that. It’s just something I do, really.
“But I do have to look back and think of how lucky I actually am, to be more offline and running at the level I am because I was told that it was going to be impossible.”
In October, he will prove that impossible is just a word, lining up at the Melbourne Marathon once more, this time in the 5km race.
The race number that he wore the last time he ran the Melbourne streets as a teenager, just before the universe hit pause on his ambitions, is still stuck to the wall of his childhood bedroom.
“I probably won’t actually ever realise how big it has impacted me,” Buckell says.
“It was kept there as a reminder that I’ve got work to do to get back to where I want to be.
“And for a while it sort of just stayed there, and it didn’t leave. And I was like, yeah, this is my constant reminder that things don’t go your way, but I can get back to what I want to do.
“I feel like I’ve been working so hard for so long, and you just keep getting shit thrown at you, but honestly, I’m confident enough to say that this is sort of the end of it and I can actually test myself now.”