“I was sitting in the back of the Tarago on my way to an athletics track, and there was this sobbing silence. I could hear someone on the other end was extremely emotional,” he says of the day in 2014 that changed his life.

It was about his friend Matt, the voice on the phone said eventually, as the realisation came crashing down on Reardon that he had just lost one of his closest friends to suicide.

“It just destroyed me, this was a guy I’d known since I was seven, we grew up playing football together.”

For years the Paralympic champion had prided himself on finding a positive out of every situation life had thrown his way. Losing his right leg in a farming accident at age 12 had not stopped his dreams of representing his country in sport, it had just changed them. It became the catalyst for a sporting career that led first to multiple world waterskiing titles and later on to silver and then gold medals on the track at the Paralympic Games in London and Rio de Janeiro.

But Reardon was struggling to make sense of the news. It was Matt who had stood by him during those months and years of rebuilding his life following the day his shoelace had become caught in the drive shaft of the family tractor.

“This guy had been part of my inner circle. He was someone who had helped me through my darkest times, one of those who had treated me the same before and after my accident, who made me believe I was still me.”

But there was worse to come.

A fortnight later another call - one of Reardon’s other close mates from Temora who had also moved to Canberra to pursue his sporting dreams was also gone.

“How do you make sense of that, losing two mates within a fortnight of each other? Both Matt and Jarred had been super positive enthusiastic guys and that’s when it clicked for me - it’s not just about me, there are people going through some tough mental challenges that you would never expect.”

Losing his friends has become a galvanising moment for Reardon, who is determined to use his profile to raise awareness of mental health.

According to Mindframe and the Australian Bureau of Statistics, nearly 2900 Australians died to suicide in 2016, three quarters of them male. An estimated 99,586 potential years of life were lost to suicide that year.

Reardon says it was years after losing his leg that it occurred to him others might still be struggling with the trauma of that incident.

"Someone asked me how my brother was going, and I realised it had been almost 10 years since I had checked in with him. It was like me telling him, 'it was an accident, we can progress forward with life and leave that now where it belongs, in the past.'"

He has begun working with Batyr, an organisation promoting positive conversations about mental health, and is looking to get more involved with other mental health organisations including Canberra-based Menslink.

As he approaches retirement from his sporting career in the coming years he hopes to build a platform he can take into businesses or schools to provide tools people can use to help friends experiencing difficulties.

"It's about encouraging people to have the conversation, to check in on a friend to see if they're doing OK. If in 10 years someone remembers something I told them at their school and uses it to help someone, then that's a positive."

He is also working on a special tribute to his two lost friends he hopes to unveil in the coming months.

"These were two absolutely cracking guys who would have gone on to do amazing things in the community. Their loss has taught me the importance of reaching out to people, the way others have reached out to me. I'm determined to make something positive for them."

• Lifeline 13 11 14 www.lifeline.org.au
• Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467 www.suicidecallbackservice.org.au