Mumsey's Ramblings: My Life Changed

If you have read the post before this one (below) you may have been wondering or waiting for this one!

(And if not may I suggest you read My Journey of Faith)

Friday September 10th 2021

It was just after the second lock down in New Zealand and we were allowed to start going out, well a little bit. I was driving to Matamata to pick up a repeat prescription I had ordered, return a library book and get a few groceries. Harry had been looking for free pellets and especially plastic ones to stack the firewood on. There were a few out side the Nothing Naughty factory, a health food factory and shop.

I thought, "I’ll ring him on Blue Tooth!" Never done it before, so now was as good a time as any. I stopped at the stop sign on the corner of Patetere Road and State Highway 27 and plugged my phone in. Drove off and waited for the music, that plays when it’s plugged in, to start. Now Harry was talking to his brother on his cell phone, when I left, so I knew I had to ring the landline. So I said, "Phone Home."

(Visions of E.T.)

The music stopped and you could sort of hear something happen like a phone start to ring then nothing really. The music started again. I waited for a bit and tried again. The same thing happened. I thought that’s not right, so with my hands still on the steering wheel I glanced down to look at the phone.

It was on the curve on SH27 just by the Balloons Fantastic people’s house. I didn’t see the truck because of the curve in the road and trees...

The next thing the windscreen smashed and I saw a sort of orange shape through the shattered glass. (Possibly the metal bit poking out by the truck wheels - Right pic) I’ve had a windscreen shatter before and knew I had to get off the road safely and I needed to get the side windows down fast to see the road. While this is flashing through my head there is this feeling of being airborne and then a heavy impact to the right side of the car.

This all took about 3-4 seconds.

It was 1.54pm. The phone had connected and rung Harry at home. It is recorded on my phones history. He was just talking to his brother on his cell phone so it took him time to get up and get to the phone to answer it. He said when he did all he could hear was static.

Immediately I thought, "I’ve been in an accident." I didn’t know where I was as I couldn’t see and I was stuck. I thought I was actually down by the railway line on the other side of the road.

The pain kicked in and I was desperate to get up off my right side as I was lying on my arm and it was painful. I tried to pull myself up off my arm by gripping the steering wheel with my left hand to pull myself up but I didn't have the strength and I was stuck

I cried out “Help me I’ve been in an accident” then “Jesus, Jesus”. I was not swearing. I was calling out to Jesus our Lord and Saviour

Smoke came out from under the steering wheel and I thought, “No, I’m not going to survive a car accident and then be burnt alive.” I called out "Jesus, Jesus." again. I so needed Him to rescue me.

Then there were voices and I was able to relay it was just me, I was hurt, could they ring Harry and gave them our home number. I had to tell them twice. I learned later they were surprised I could recite the number. I had not had a bang to the head so there was no concussion but they still found it amazing.

(But God is!)

And I asked for someone to please pray. Twice I asked and no-one responded, but I knew there were at least 4 different people there.

My front left wheel and
the trucks wheel in the distance
Harry's ute to the right

Then I heard the siren go up. Do you know how reassuring that sound is when you are in need?

The Tirau Fire brigade arrived and the rescue started. I suppose the view from the back of my car doesn't look so bad and they may have thought it just needed to be 'righted' so to speak but it was much worse than that.

Stephen, a fire fighter, lay on the ground by my window the whole time, even when advised by the brigade to move, when they were doing a couple of dangerous things to the car. What a comfort that man was. Each time the brigade were doing something to the car he would tell me what was going to happen and what to expect. Other times we would just chat about anything really, just to be distracted from my pain and what was happening.

A couple of times a tarpaulin was laid across me to protect from shattering glass and other debris and still he lay outside the car by my drivers window next to me.

Once they had tied the car to a tree and supported it in it's position, they could then cut the roof off. I was told much later that they had just obtained a new tool for doing this and I was the first vehicle they tried it on. Some how when I had been told that I felt special that as a local they were using it on a local's car, not that that was probably what they wanted to be doing, I know many of them.

An orange jack to support the back left of the car.
Stephen lying on the ground beside me.
(Below the car)
The line of trucks waiting to get past

Then the St Johns Ambulance officer had arrived at 2.08 and could now work on me. Before that she had great difficulty reaching through the windows and dislodged windscreen. She had been trying to take my blood pressure, insert a line in and generally assess my injuries.

As I was stuck in my seat with the steering wheel and dashboard shoved closer from the impact of the crash, it was all difficult. I didn't know at the time but the dashboard had come up and shattered my knees exposing a lot of tissue and our son, Daniel, had said to me later, "Mum, there was a lot of blood!"

The St John's Officer had tried to insert the lure in the normal places but the injuries were making it very difficult to find anywhere. She had tried the arms and couldn't even get to the ankles.

She gave me the green whistle to suck on. If you have ever watched those emergency rescue programmes on television you will know patients are told you have to really suck on these for the pain relief to work, so suck on it, I did. Believe me, I needed it and it quickly started taking effect.

My safety belt was cut off and I could remember the feeling of relief from that. I had broken the sternum and some ribs from the belt, but it had kept me safe in my seat. I also felt her cutting my shoes and clothes up my left side. I had loved that dark orange mohair rolled neck jumper! It was so soft and warm but light to wear....

I don't recall much more but Harry and Daniel said I moaned a lot whenever they moved me.

Harry recalls I was extracted from the car by cutting at the back of the car's drivers seat and sliding the stretcher under me, then carried on a stretcher to the waiting ambulance.

I was trapped in the car for about 45 minutes while they worked to get me out.

I have captured a copy of the ambulance report so you can see to what degree the staff were dealing with.

O/A = On arrival

PT = patient

GCS = Glasgow Coma Scale (used to objectively describe the extent of impaired consciousness in all types of acute medical and trauma patients. 15 fully alert, 3 deep coma)

R = right

IV = intravenous

ICP = Intensive Care Paramedic

BP = Blood Pressure

A = Airway

B = Breathing

C = Circulation

D = Disability (Level of consciousness)

NSR = Normal Sinus Rhythm

KOED = knocked out

L = left

abdo = abdomen

These pictures my son took may seem hard to look at but it helped me to see what had happened and the work needed and done to free me and get me to hospital. The securing of the car to a tree, the cutting off, of the roof and the St John's officer trying to get at me from all angles.

The new cutting tool top left.
My right hand out the window
Sheets and tarpaulin over me
The white airbags deflated on dashboard

During that time, I had a couple of visions.

The first was of being wheeled on a trolley by what appeared to be people dressed like those in the TV series Mash through some bush. They were rushing and talking about the need of urgency.

This faded and then a new vision came.

I was being pushed along on a trolley again but this time I was in a tunnel. It was made of smooth pure white and a sort of orangey-gold tiles. Even though they were tiles there did not seem to be any grout holding them together and they were bigger then the size of bricks. They were so bright they almost glowed.

I had six people pushing the trolley wearing pure white gowns and they were smiling and sort of humming. They were saying; I was going to be all right, it was so good to see me, 'they' were waiting for me, I was nearly there ... and we were sort of just curving around to some sort of grand entrance then it all faded out.

The ambulance notes say that “Patients respiratory effort decreased, oxygen saturations decreased, manual airway manoeuvre and bag mask ventilation for 5 mins.”

I believe I was dying. I believe I was on my way to heaven. I remember feeling in that vision, surprised but then excited for whatever was about to happen even though I wasn’t quite sure what was happening. I was almost disappointed when I 'came back'. But for some reason God needed me still to be here on earth. Heaven is real and I am not afraid of dying but only in God's time when He is ready for me to enter His glorious Kingdom above.

I was worked on in the ambulance for nearly 40 minutes. The ambulance report says "Handed pt over to heli at 15:33"

Then I am aware of Harry kissing me and being slotted into the Westpac Rescue helicopter and the heli crew telling me what to expect. Head phones were put over my ears and it would take 11 minutes to get to Waikato Hospital.

While we were flying I could see the clouds and I thought about what had happened. Here I was not sure how broken I was, not having time to talk to Harry, trying to grasp what I had seen in the vision and wondering what was going to happen to me. The attendant in the helicopter would ask how I was and chat a little while monitoring me all the time. But I was comforted that God was in control and He loved me, even though I had looked away for a second while driving.

Once at Waikato there was a team who set to work on me just like you see in TV shows. I don’t remember a lot of it as I was in and out of sedation. I do remember being taken to the CT machine for the scan, so not being able to have the pain relief on. There were warm blankets and support all around me on the stretcher bed. I was told I had to lie still, hold my breath - there was no way I was moving anything.

left knee with pins

I had 17 fractures to the body:

A green stick fracture in my left elbow.

3 broken ribs and a broken sternum.

6 fractures to the spine.

A right femoral neck fracture.

A comminute fracture of the humerus in my right arm.

A shattered left knee cap

Two breaks in the right femur above the knee and halfway up.

The ball of the right hip bone broken off the top.

I underwent 8 hours of surgery with:

Pins inserted in the left knee cap to repair a shattered patella

Plates and pins to hold the two breaks in line, in the right femur, this then had -

A bolt to reattach the ball of the right hip to the top of the femur

Plates (1 long and 1 short) in the right humerus

Other open wounds in my knees and legs were flushed and stitched back together.

lower right femur (newer x-ray)

Upper right femur and hip bolt

As I was not given copies of all the original x-rays its hard to see.

In the x-ray to the left:

The plate the bolt in the hip is connected to at the top, is long and runs all the way down to the knee.

In the x-ray on the right:

The same long plate holds two breaks in place, one half way up the femur (you can just see it at the very top of the pic on the left) and then one near the knee, just above the three horizontal pins.

To me the pins look like nails rather than pins!

In the hunerus x-ray pics (Below) you can see the shattered break and the need for a long plate on one side and a shorter one behind to hold the shattered bones in place.

This fortunately did not break skin.

You will see why it was so painful and why I wanted to pull myself up off lying on it in the car before help arrived.

Right hunerus break before and after surgery

The above video is the day after surgery while in the high dependency unit

I spent 2 days in the high dependency unit, then 8 days up in the orthopedic ward at Waikato Hospital. I was told by the chief emergency orthopedic surgeon that it would take a long time to heal. I thought a few weeks being home by my birthday at the end of October. He stressed again it will take a long time.

The plan was for me to spend six weeks in convalescent care then six weeks in rehabilitation.

Convalescent care was to be at Morrinsville or Te Awamutu. These are a fair way away from our place, so probably an hour to hour and a half, round trip to visit

My friend Marie, who pretended to be my sister so she could visit (we are sisters in Christ) suggested I be transferred to Pohlen hospital ( 15 minutes or so from our place) and I prayed.

It happened.

I grew to love the care, staff and residents and accepted it as my home for the coming months