Living in hell after crash
Karen Rutherford is championing a roadsafety campaign just three months after surviving a horror smash, writes Jay Boreham.
KAREN Rutherford has been living in her own ‘‘personal hell’’ since she was knocked from her horse George just over three months ago.
The wounds on her hand are fading to scars, the moon boot on her broken left foot has been retired, and after 10 weeks she has graduated from painfully shuffling round home on a disability walker, to hobbling on crutches.
Her thoughts are now on the more serious physical damage and the psychological torture the accident caused, and how to stop it happening to others.
The MediaWorks journalist and her eldest daughter Ella, 13, were riding single file on Postman Rd in rural north Auckland’s Dairy Flat, when a car allegedly ploughed into George, throwing Rutherford into its windscreen.
George was killed and Rutherford suffered horrific injuries.
With urban boundaries exploding and more people moving into rural areas, Rutherford feels there isn’t an appreciation for many of what it takes to drive on a rural road and she wants drivers to realise rural roads aren’t racetracks.
She is now getting behind a petition launched the week after her crash by the NZ Horse Network. It will ask Minister of Transport Simon Bridges to make legislation clearer when it comes to passing horses on roads. More than 3000 people have signed it.
The petition calls on the Government to at least match Australian legislation, including setting a 20kmh limit for passing horses, making it an offence to hit or kill a ridden horse with a car and ensuring horse riders have the same rules for safe passage as other road users.
While Rutherford is unsure on how long her road is to a full recovery she plans to champion cause to make New Zealand’s roads safer.
‘‘I’m a fighter, and while the flashbacks, panic attacks and ongoing injuries have knocked me, I’m not going to let this dampen my resolve.’’
Rutherford’s multiple broken bones and gashes are mentioned as after-thoughts now when she describes her injuries.
Her right leg remains in a fulllength brace after being degloved in the accident.
‘‘When I hit the windscreen my JAY BOREHAM/FAIRFAXNZ whole leg catapulted into my head and split the back of my leg open,’’ she says.
The split runs around twothirds of her leg and the impact forced the skin and tissue of her lower leg away from the muscle.
‘‘I was lucky, I nearly lost my leg. The surgeon could put his whole hand inside it,’’ she says.
A massive trauma to her lower leg is also yet to heal. Until it does she can’t have a second operation on the leg to fix ligament damage to her knee.
After two weeks in hospital Rutherford returned to her Dairy Flat home to convalesce just 100m from where the accident happened.
‘‘Almost 11 weeks on and I’m only just now able to leave the house because I amsuffering such severe panic attacks from being out near the road,’’ she says.
She cannot handle busy environments and suffers flashbacks.
‘‘It took me a long time to look out the window. On one side of the house I have got the paddock where George used to graze, on the other side is the accident scene, and it’s been like living in this own personal little hell confined to my home.’’
A week ago she plucked up the courage to cross Postman Rd with Ella to thank a neighbour who helped during the incident. Her triumph was short-lived when a boyracer spotted the two in the middle, revved their engine and sped up.
As the car passed she motioned with her crutches for the driver to slow down but the car’s occupants gave her the fingers as they sped off up the road. ‘‘I was gobsmacked. They did it to spook us I guess, but the effect that had on me was just traumatic.
‘‘If only they had known how much courage it had taken me to cross that road in the first place.’’
The 43-year-old can also not bear to look at her smashed riding helmet. Her head hit the windscreen and she suffered a serious concussion.
Neurological testing on Wednesday revealed one side of her brain is functioning slower than the other.
She is now awaiting a CT scan to check for further injury.
‘‘The fact that I amstill suffering flashbacks and panic attacks and it is almost three months on shows the effect that something like this has.
‘‘It is a moment. Life can change like that.’’
Chinese national Peng Wang, 28, has pleaded not guilty to charges of careless driving causing injury over the incident.
‘ I’m a fighter, and while the flashbacks, panic attacks and ongoing injuries have knocked me, I’m not going to let this dampen my resolve.’