Helping the Magpas lifesavers
The courageous stories of two families involved in separate car accidents who are now helping to spare heartache for others
“Without the kindness of the Cade family, Rebekah would not be here today” Louise Cheshire
As grateful as Louise Cheshire is to the Cade family for helping to save her daughter’s life, she struggles to say so… “How can I thank them?” asks the mum whose daughter Rebekah (25) died several times after a car crash and was resuscitated by doctors using medical equipment the Cade family had paid for. The dilemma Louise Cheshire (47) faces is understandable. Although she is indebted to the Cades, she knows that their generosity sprang from their own tragic loss. Louise Cade (then 8) and her sister Sally (6) stepped off the school bus outside their home in Thorney, near Peterborough, on January 21, 1994. Holding hands, the two sisters looked both ways and began crossing the road. Out of nowhere, a speeding car appeared and hit them both. Hearing the noise of the impact, Mrs Cade ran out to find her daughters lying in the road. Unable to remember the emergency number 999 in her shock, she rang her local surgery and three volunteer doctors working for the Magpas Air Ambulance were called out. “Mum says she will never forget the noise of that loud bang,” says Louise Cade, now 31, who remembers little about the accident. Two ambulances under police escort took the girls separately to Peterborough District Hospital. Although their hearts stopped several times en route, the accompanying Magpas doctors brought them back to life. On arrival at hospital, both girls were put on ventilators in neighbouring intensive care beds. Sadly, Sally died from head trauma and organ failure two days later. Louise, who is now a payroll manager living with her partner in Spalding, Lincolnshire, recovered very slowly. At Sally’s funeral, donations of money collected in lieu of flowers was handed over to Magpas Air Ambulance and the family also fundraised to buy a portable defibrillator. Just 11 months later, on a bright sunny December morning in 1994, that defibrillator was to prove a lifesaver when Louise Cheshire and her daughter Rebekah were involved in a car accident.
“I believe I came back to help people and that’s how I try to live my life’ Louise Cade
Louise explains that she was driving herself to work and dropping off Rebekah, then two years and nine months old, at nursery when she hit a patch of ice near Thorney. The car spun out of control, was in collision with another and ended up in a ditch. In and out of consciousness, Louise’s memory of events is hazy but she remembers hearing sirens and being in the ambulance with Rebekah and asking the doctor if she was still alive. “He said ‘I can’t tell you she’s going to be all right, but she’s still alive and holding on at the moment,’ ” remembers Louise, who suffered a broken collar bone, cuts and bruises. She later discovered Rebekah had suffered a stroke, various injuries and had died twice in the ambulance. It was thanks to the Magpas doctors, using the Cades’ defibrillator, that she was resuscitated. Rebekah faced a long struggle but amazed doctors with her recovery following neurosurgery at Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge. “She was brought to me to say goodbye… and days after the accident, the neurology professor said he’d never seen a brain so damaged in a person who was still alive. “A few years ago, another doctor saw Rebekah and, remembering her, asked ‘How the hell are you alive?’ adds Louise. Part of the answer to that question, she knows lies with the Cade family’s kindness. “Without them, Rebekah would not be here today,” she says matter of factly. “Life has its challenges and she has been left with moderate to severe learning difficulties but I still have her and she has a good quality of life.” Purely by coincidence several years ago, in a previous job, she had to phone the grandmother of Sally and Louise Cade and the pair got chatting. Since then, she and Rebekah have met the family and although she hopes her gratitude is obvious, she struggles to put her thanks into words. “It’s a difficult situation but knowing what they’ve gone through, how can I ever thank them for my daughter’s life, knowing it’s because they lost their own little girl?” Fortunately, she doesn’t have to. Louise Cade says, “There is no need to say thank you. It helps knowing that out of our tragedy, a miracle has happened. Something good has come.” Actions speak louder than words anyway, she insists, and on July 8, the two women, who are now firm friends, will do a 13,000ft skydive to raise more money for Magpas Air Ambulance and help others survive. “I am so grateful to Magpas. If it was not for them I would not be here now. I know that,” says Louise Cade, who gives talks to local schoolchildren about road safety. “I believe I came back to help people and that’s how I try to live my life. I’ll help anyone. “I know my sister would want to do the same and I believe she’ll be with us when we do the skydive. It will be a very emotional day.”