23/08/2025
A day of thanks today. One year ago today, a group of dedicated people, some of them total strangers to each other and some who worked together for years came together to support and help a beautiful young woman, who whilst just driving home from a Uni residential school and visiting friends, blew a tyre and crashed head on into another vehicle.
These total strangers, stopped and helped her, They phoned for help, directed traffic around the scene, gave her aid and some just simply held her hand and comforted her in the wreckage of her car letting her know that it was all going to be okay.
Within minutes, teams of wonderful emergency service personnel were on hand. Rocky and Chris of the Victorian Highway Patrol had a horrible job of investigating the scene, not knowing if this young woman would make it out of the wreckage and to hospital.
CFA Rescue and the wonderful Paramedic team worked to stabiliser her as best they could and called in the amazing pilots and aero-medical trauma team from Melbourne to get her to The Royal Melbourne Hospital as quickly as possible.
After two hours of work to get her out, she was flown out from the scene and into the caring arms of the ED at The Royal Melbourne Hospital and our own personal journey started after, as I put it, "the phone call no parent ever wants to get".
Teresa and I were kept informed the whole of our journey south, first by road then by plane after amazing help by friends here in Uralla, our son, Laurie and the rest of our beautiful family. We were kept in the loop the whole of Mel's surgeries and recovery and supported by the many staff around us, while nurses washed and platted Mel's hair and even threw her a 20th Birthday party in the ICU to make sure the day didn't go by without us being able to enjoy her life to that time.
The Victorian Police and staff at The Royal Melbourne Hospital, John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle and Armidale Referral Hospital could not have done more for us and has left us all with a profound sense of humility and pride in the Medical and Patient care system and Communities we have become part of.
Everyone here on Mel's Recovery page, Jeremey's family who reached out to us within hours of the accident, our friends and family and our beautiful community of Uralla here in the New England of NSW have been there to support us over the past 12 months.
Mel continues to recover and more surgery is ahead for her, but she is here, and living her life, studying, working, travelling and enjoying her life, which she has because of the dedicated professionals that have come into her and our lives over the past year, both in Shepparton, Melbourne, Newcastle and Armidale.
So many people to thank that Facebook probably wouldn't let me have the space to mention everyone by name. As we get ready to celebrate our beautiful girls 21st Birthday, we say thank you from the bottom of our hearts and we'll continue from time to time to let everyone know how she is getting on.
Love from Russ.
