I SLASHED MY THROAT dancing
Dancing nearly cost Kaitlyn her life Kaitlyn Scott, 19, Carisbrook, Vic
Partying with friends at my place, I was looking forward to a fun night. With drinks flowing, it wasn’t long before a mate began dancing on the kitchen table.
That looks like fun, I thought, climbing up as he got down.
I started dancing myself, a bottle of beer in hand. Then I decided to jump. ‘Catch me!’ I yelled to my friend – and leapt.
He wasn’t ready – so instead of landing in his arms, I crashed onto the floor, on top of the bottle. It smashed beneath me. Getting up, I realised blood was spurting out of my neck.
‘Oh my god,’ I said, clutching at my throat in horror.
There was a big hole in my neck. The broken glass had slashed my throat, blood spurted everywhere.
It’s like a horror movie,
I thought.
My friend Tamika, 19, instinctively tried to cover the huge wound in my neck with her bare hands.
But the blood just gushed between her fingers.
My friend Jack phoned for an ambulance while someone
Blood spurted everywhere – it was like a horror movie
else grabbed a towel so Tamika could hold that to my throat instead.
I felt sick and dizzy.
I’m going to die here in the kitchen, I thought.
Luckily, the ambulance arrived before it was too late.
Paramedics bandaged my neck but as there were still bits of glass in my wound, they couldn’t secure it tightly.
Each time I moved, the wound would open and blood would spurt out again.
Given morphine for the pain, I was rushed to hospital.
When my mum, Cynthia, arrived and saw me lying in the bed, she burst into tears.
‘I had no idea it was this bad!’ she sobbed.
A doctor explained that I’d had a lucky escape.
‘If that glass had cut you just a few millimetres away,’ he said. ‘It would have hit a main artery and you’d have been dead in 10 seconds.’ I couldn’t believe it.
I was whisked to the Royal Melbourne Hospital to have the glass surgically removed.
After surgeons cleaned the wound and gave me 12 stitches, I was left with a scar 3cm wide and 8cm long.
I’m lucky I survived with just a scar to show for it, although my mental scars will never go.
I’m sharing my story to warn others not to take risks when they have glass in their hand – it’s just not worth it.
It will be a long, long time before I drink beer out of a bottle again!