Tears of joy for Goulding
“During the day it dawned on me it was about to happen, and I was just crying with happiness. I was very overwhelmed by the fact I was going to play again.’’
Mary Goulding
Mary Goulding was so happy she couldn’t stop crying. Just 10 months after the horrific car accident that nearly claimed her life just outside Christchurch, here she was, in Perth, Western Australia, playing meaningful, high-level basketball again.
Ten long, hard, often painful months after staring death right between its eyes, this remarkable 27-year-old was doing what she loves in a form that, frankly, she never thought she would be capable of. Just one more time on this incredible journey, this Tall Ferns and Canterbury basketballer was defying the odds.
For the record, Goulding played her first game of semi-professional hoops since her accident for the East Perth Eagles in NBL1 West against the Warwick Senators last Thursday. They lost the game, 96-81, but Goulding very much won the day with a stunning performance.
She played 27 minutes off the bench, notching a double-double of 14 points and 12 rebounds, as well as 4 assists. She made 7 of her 14 shots. She had a steal. She snuck in for 6 boards off the offensive glass.
In short, she amazed everyone, including herself, considering that only 10 months previously she had lain in a coma for 12 days, with her family bedside not knowing whether she would wake up and, if she did, what shape she would be in.
Goulding, as she does, confounded the odds. She suffered major head injuries, as well as severe trauma to her left leg and neck and shoulder on the right side, in the crash that occurred in Rangiora, just north of Christchurch, last May 20.
At the time medics doubted she would even be able to live a normal existence, let alone play high-level hoops again. Goulding, who at the time of the crash was preparing to play the Fiba Asia Cup with the Tall Ferns, knew only one thing: she was going to give it a lick. And not even a freakish second accident, eerily close to the scene of the first one, while returning from
treatment in a taxi just a few months after could deter her.
Ten months on, there she was, in her first proper game since that fateful day, playing semi-pro basketball in a quality Australian league, after a week of preparation with her new, old team (she had played for them before the accident, last appearing in 2021), and it was almost – but not quite – the
Mary of old.
“It was the most emotional experience I’ve ever had,” Goulding told Stuff from Perth. “I was just so grateful it was happening. During the day it dawned on me it was about to happen, and I was just crying with happiness. I was very overwhelmed by the fact I was going to play again.
“I was nervous too. What’s going to happen? At the same time I trusted the people around me that if anything happens where I’m not OK, there was no pressure, I could just sub off.
“A little part of me also thought last time I played in this league I was runner-up MVP, and I hoped people weren’t expecting that. I was worried people would be disappointed. It didn’t last long because it was easy to push that thought away because of the sheer magnitude of what I’ve gone through.”
Goulding said the whole week leading up to the game had been “mind-blowing”, and even now she struggled to put its impact on her into words.
“It really was just overwhelming gratefulness. It’s real, but it almost doesn’t feel real. As much as you prepare for something, nothing really prepares you for it until you go through it.”
As far as the actual reality went, a double-double off the bench was an incredible first step, and one that dawned on her as soon as she walked off court.
“A lot of things went through my head. The main one was I was just so grateful. I thought, ‘wow, I love this’. It was so much fun.
“Literally everything was above and beyond my guess at where I’m at. It just blew everything out of the water.’’