Jaimee able to breathe after surgery
Wanaka’s new $3 million fire station should be finished by June next year.
Breens Construction moved on site in Ballantyne Rd this week and is fencing the property and preparing the carpark.
The three-bay station will be set back into the hill between the Wanaka police station and the Wanaka LandSAR building.
Breens Constructions project manager Kelvin Mulqueen said the year-long build should provide fulltime work for six or seven builders, with up to 30 other tradesman likely to be involved in subcontracts.
The Alexandra-based company employs up to 25 people in Wanaka and has a total of 120 staff throughout Central Otago.
Wanaka fire chief Bruno Galloway is happy the station is underway, 10 years after it was first proposed. Invercargill woman Jaimee Fincher is out of surgery and able to breathe on her own.
The 34-year-old was diagnosed with a rare intramedullary spinal cord tumour in April after about a year of symptoms.
There was a risk that Fincher would be unable to breathe on her own or not even wake up after the surgery at Dunedin Hospital on Wednesday morning.
An update on her Givealittle page yesterday says Fincher came out of the sixhour operation awake but groggy.
‘‘She is able to breathe on her own, which was her number one goal. We are thrilled with this news. Her doctor told her she is very lucky,’’ the Givalittle post says.
‘‘At this stage she has a long road ahead of her as she currently doesn’t have feeling in the left side of her body, with some sensation in the right side.’’
‘‘Doctors are very hopeful . . . they removed the entire tumour.’’
Fincher previously said before the operation they were unable to determine the type of tumour and it would need to be tested after the operation. Medics had established it could be one of two – astrocytoma, which entangles itself in the spine, or ependymoma which is the less harmful of the two.
The Givealittle update said she is in the intensive care unit and receiving good care.
‘‘We are all keeping positive and Jaimee is keeping very strong as always.’’
The tumour which was removed from her spinal cord usually occurred on the brain.
She was understood to be one of very few with the condition in New Zealand.
Speaking before the operation, Fincher said she knew something was wrong in January 2014 when she lost feeling in the end of her fingers
Then she started getting blocked ears and electric shock-type feelings running through different parts of her body.
An MRI showed something on her spinal cord and in April she was diagnosed with the intramedullary tumour.
Doctors told her the tumour could have been nestled in her spine for years and if she did nothing about it she may not live until the end of the year, she said.