Community rallies support for Claire
FRIENDS of Claire Tucker, who is still in a critical condition in Cairns Hospital, have thanked Far North Queenslanders for their enormous generosity in helping the single mother.
Thousands of dollars has been raised for Ms Tucker, 36, in less than 24 hours to assist with her recovery after the Redlynch beautician took a tragic tumble off a footbridge along the Bruce Highway on Saturday night.
The mother-of-one had lost track of her friends after attending the Cairns Cup and was believed to have attempted to walk towards town to hail a taxi.
She was found suffering serious injuries underneath the Clarkes Creek pedestrian bridge, outside the Stockland Shopping Centre, on Saturday at 9pm.
Ms Tucker has sustained major brain trauma, broken bones in her neck, back and spine, and is currently comatose.
A group of Ms Tucker’s friends, who have known her for more than 30 years, have started a GoFundMe page to support her and five-year-old son Zephyr.
Selina Taylor told the Cairns Post they had been overwhelmed by the generosity of so many people in such a short period.
“I think (the incident) affected so many people because it could happen to anyone,” she said.
“We’ve all gone out, we’ve all gotten dressed up and had a few drinks and lost each other.
“This could happen to anyone — (Claire) is not someone who goes out a lot.”
Cairns on a Fork has offered to donate proceeds towards Claire from its upcoming food festival at West Barlow Park on Friday night.
Another friend, Sammy McDornan, helped.
“Claire’s a single mum, who runs her own business and is the only worker in the business, so when she’s not working, there’s no money coming in,” she said.
“So to take this burden off her family, this is why we’ve started a crowd-funding page, just to keep her bills ticking over. She’s going to have a lot of medical expenses, rehabilitation.
“She lives in a highset Queenslander, which is pretty much falling apart, so there’s a lot of work that needs to go into it.” said every cent