A live giving flight

The wail of sirens grew louder as the flashing reflection of the red and blues illuminates the terminal window.

The ambulance with its fragile cargo entangled in cables and tubes approached the gate. The usual buzz of the airport and the hurried footsteps of those running late seemed to fade, this was no ordinary flight. This was a flight that meant the difference between life and death, every second counted.  

On the stretcher lay a frail lifeless body. The chorus of beeps from the thousands of monitors and machines seemed to rise above the hum of the airfield. So many tubes. A ventilator. Adrenaline. Antibiotics. Saline. Albumen. Morphine. Antiepileptic drugs. Intracranial catheter. That body was someone's loved one, a daughter, a sister, a mother and a friend.

Somewhere there was a family in pain.

The angels in uniform seemed to float effortlessly around the body, concentrating hard as they channelled their strength to fight for the helpless.

As we stood waiting for our flight i began to wonder about the story behind the tragedy, a cold hand squeezed my heart as the reality of death always being so near slowly took over my mind.

Our lives continued as normal, I often wondered what had happened that day. It wasn’t until many years later I stumbled upon an old news article with a personal account, a personal story of that very day. 

What I read shocked me to the core. That day so long ago as I stood afar and watched the events unfold, there was a family in pain. A young family facing the loss of a mother, a mother and father facing the loss of daughter but that flight - it was live giving.

Friday 8th December 2006

Okay, so the last 48 hours have been that of a nightmare. No ordinary nightmare. The nightmare that makes you shiver right down to your core. Those ones that no matter how fast you run or how hard you try you just can’t get away.

I don’t know where to start but I guess I should start from when it all began.

It was a Sunday afternoon, the lazy afternoon. An unusual lull in conversation was suddenly broken by the call of the telephone. Everyone sensed something ominous. The usual homely ring of the telephone seemed sharper than usual. Something foreboding settled over the room, like a blanket blocking light. A family friend with gripping news.

An accident, it was my Mother and Father, silence reigned. A snowstorm engulfed my mind; whirling thoughts and no clear way through. We were only separated for only a few hours. Was that separation permanent? Fear rose up within me, pushing every other emotion from my being. A cold, clammy sense, an unsure, sickening feeling washed over me. Then the warm salty tears slowly slid down my face.

During the hours following it seemed my life was stuck in slow motion. As information gathered so did the image in my mind.

A blue-green Holden, travelling the country roads from Victoria into South Australia. He sleepily entered an s-bend, making the first corner but not the second.

110km/h without even braking, with an earth shuddering thud they came to a complete stop as the hit a tree. Her head flung forward, hitting the windscreen and instantly cracking the skull. Would she survive? The accelerator acted like a knife, piercing straight through his foot as he awoke suddenly to the nightmare that was indeed his reality. Gritting his teeth and trying to control the pain he pulled. He knew he had to get out and help her out. There was so many questions but no answers.

Would the car explode?

Would they make it?

 Was she in pain?

Friends, just behind, stopped and called the emergency services, helping him from the wreckage. The mess that used to be a car, now an unrecognisable twisted pile of scrap metal. For what seems like eternity they waited. The possibility of death seemed to grow heavier than the possibility of life.

She is loaded into the life saving Royal Flying Doctor plane, and heads for Adelaide. Flying was a risk for a patient with a head injury this serious - but the urgency was too great. She had to fly. Now they’re separated. Was it temporary or permanent?

Then there’s me. Already in Adelaide, I waited impatiently to see my her. My heart was beating but i wasnt breathing, how does one breathe when the person who gave them life may well never breathe again?

But mum…when would we see her, would I be able to recognise her?

The stretcher is wheeled towards the gate, surrounded by a buzz of activity. All the medical paraphernalia made me gasp. Fear clenched harder than before. I felt as though I would never feel anything but fear and sadness again.

Only old people die, lying trapped in a spider web of tubes. Not young people and NOT my mum.               

My shoulders slumped. They walked straight past! Again tears carved tracks down my pale face, which was distorted with stress. Why my her? There had to be a reason but nothing came to me as I began to sob uncontrollably. We followed the ambulance on its painfully slow drive; the number plate etching its details into my memory- AMB 003. 

Each second seemed to last an eternity as we drove. Through the city I looked enviously at those we passed, living life a normal. There worlds continued but mine had been shattered into a thousand small pieces and at this point, it felt as though they would never fit together again.

Eventually we arrived at the hospital, a building I had passed so many times in the past now seemed cold and somehow distant from reality. The heavy, pungent smell of the disinfectant brought me back to reality accompanied by a sickening nausea. There we sat in the chairs, waiting for the news. There seemed to be a never ending stream of doctors and nurses floating through the halls, but no one knew what was happening - or at least no one would speak.

As the doctor finally spoke I felt like I could breathe for the first time. His words blurred as my brain processed the one piece of information it cared to hear, she was alive. It seemed eternity had been back and passed again since we got the phone call.

We entered the room. In a place where death was ever present the white room presented a sense of hope. Small but there.

The silence in a room like that is eerie. The nightmare kept closing in. The woman I knew so well, was lying so still. It was hard. It was hard to believe it was her, she was usually so full of life. I watched that life support machine. Every breath, was another dose of life. Friends and family members came and went but all I wanted was a guarantee. A guarantee she would be okay. All I could think of was death.

With a mighty effort, I pushed the thought from my mind. Right now her life was a scale. A scale with two sides. Life or death.

The nurses were compassionate, caring, and ever watchful. They seemed the only human thing in the seemingly forsaken building. 

 “She may never speak or walk. There is a large chance she will not remember you. Don’t expect too much.”

These words rang through my ears as we walked back to the ICU. Terrifying thoughts filtered into my mind... accidents were something that you read about in books, something that others endured, but now... We were living the nightmare.

The months that passed after were like driving with a foggy windscreen - rushing cold air onto the screen and turning the windscreen wipers on faster and faster as I tried to focus on the road ahead. Obstacles came and went and if I didn't focus disaster struck but the harder I tried to clear the fog the more it steamed up and the more exhausted I became. Cars flew past the windows and occasionally I made sense of my location that surrounded me but the majority of the time I was driving blind simply clinging to hope that we would survive the journey. The longing to return to the open road I once knew is ever present but it seems more and more like a dream. Something that will never happen.

Sometimes one incident can alter your journey forever.