Dinner time DANGER
Despite a traumatic accident, Aimee’s little girl Hailey has de ed the odds
As I prepared dinner, my two-year-old daughter, Hailey, danced around the kitchen island, waving her toy sword in the air.
It was June 2023, and Hailey was always keeping me, my partner Justin, 33, and her older siblings, Riley, 13, Chelsea and Angel, 12, and Lucas, four, entertained.
After peeling some potatoes for mash, I dropped them into a pan of water to boil, before turning my attention to feeding our six-month-old, Sophie.
Seconds later, Hailey let out a piercing scream. Spinning around, I spotted the pan on the oor and steaming hot spuds scattered around my girl.
Hailey was crying hysterically.
‘Oh my God!’ I screamed, running to her side.
‘She knocked the boiling water from the stove all over herself,’ I cried as Justin ran in.
She must have bumped the pan with her toy sword!
Justin raced Hailey to the bathroom where we put her under a cool shower. Then I unzipped her onesie, revealing red raw peeling skin.
After I dialled Emergency, paramedics arrived quickly. They kept her under the cool water for another 20 minutes.
Giving our sobbing girl pain relief, they raced us both to hospital, while Justin dropped the other kids off with his mum.
Arriving, Hailey was thrashing about in pain. ‘Mummy’s here,’ I soothed. Hailey was rushed to ICU, and Justin arrived soon after. Doctors wrapped Hailey in bandages and sedated her.
Next morning, Hailey’s face was angry and swollen. She’d suffered second degree burns to 36 per cent of her body, including her right arm, leg, torso, shoulder and face.
I couldn’t believe my girl had been scarred by a pan of potatoes.
The following day, doctors shaved her head and took her in for debridement surgery to scrub and clean her burns.
But terrifyingly, Hailey stopped breathing on the operating table, and the op was cancelled.
When we saw her, she was unconscious and hooked up to a machine to help her breathe.
Justin and I were distraught.
Thankfully after 11 days Hailey was breathing on her own and well enough to be taken off the machines. A few days later, she underwent the debridement surgery.
The next week was tough. She struggled to breathe again, and had a bad reaction to antibiotics.
Two weeks later, her lungs nally started to work again, and doctors decided she was ready to be woken up.
But when Hailey came around, she was unresponsive. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused.
So she was taken for a CT and MRI scan.
‘The scans have shown that Hailey has brain damage,’ the neurologist told us afterwards.
‘The chances of her pulling through are signi cantly low. She will be in a vegetative state and will eventually forget how to breathe.’
How had it come to this? Hailey was ghting for her life. I’d have given
I’d have given anything to swap places with her
anything to swap places with her.
In the days that followed, doctors ran tests, which showed Hailey’s brain function was slow, and that she had no voluntary re exes.
‘A tracheostomy (creating an opening in her neck to allow her to breathe) will be Hailey’s best chance at survival,’ the doctor explained.
But it would be the only thing keeping our girl alive.
‘The other option is to withdraw care and let Hailey pass naturally,’ the doctor added gently.
‘Can we take some time to think about it?’ I asked, in pieces.
‘I’m not ready to let her go,’ I cried to Justin that night. And he felt the same.
Miraculously, the following night Hailey lifted her arm and pointed to the door, with purpose.
Feeling hopeful, Justin and I looked at each other. ‘That’s voluntary!’ I said.
The next day, Hailey was wheeled into theatre.
Surgeons inserted a tube in her windpipe to allow air to ll her lungs.
She woke up and, days later, I was able to hold my little girl for the rst time since her accident.
‘I’m so proud of you,’ I whispered.
The next week, Hailey underwent her rst skin graft surgery. Skin was taken from her left torso, leg and head.
Days later, she had a second skin graft surgery, where skin was taken from her bottom.
In the weeks that followed, I slowly saw my little girl come back to life.
Her eyes became focused, and movement in her arms improved. Soon she was able to sit up in a recliner chair, which she loved, and she started to smile again.
Eventually Hailey was eating and breathing on her own. She even started to sing.
A month after her tracheostomy surgery, the tube was nally removed.
Hailey was tted with a wheelchair and, three months after her accident, she was discharged from hospital. Her siblings were so excited to have her home.
She still had a long way to go, and I was worried she wouldn’t get her cheeky personality back. But she impressed us every day.
Then just weeks after she came home from hospital, she took her rst steps since her accident!
Hailey, now three, wears compression garments all over her body 24/7, and visits a physiotherapist twice a week. But her scars are healing and her hair is starting to grow.
She also sees a speech therapist to help her talk, and recently she said her
rst word since the accident, ‘frog’!
We don’t know what the future holds, but Hailey is making progress every day. She is our little miracle. ●
Soon able to sit up, she started to smile again