Sitting in his home in Balga, Western Australia, Uncle Wayne Garlett reflects on a life-changing injury that left him with a damaged spinal cord.

At nine years old, he was hit by a car and sent to hospital.

He managed to recover but was forced to overcome another challenge brought by the Western Australian government.

"I spent about 18 months in hospital and then got taken away to a mission," the proud Ballardong man and Stolen Generations survivor said.

Aboriginal children in Western Australia were then under the control of the Native Welfare Act, which was used to "assist in their economic and social assimilation".

It would be decades before Uncle Wayne reunited with his family, but the injury that separated him from his loved ones returned to haunt him.

"When I got to about 46, I

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