Brush with death focuses life
Complications from a broken leg during rugby game puts prop on life support.
Abroken leg during a rugby game led to complications that almost claimed Hayden Anderson’s life — but determination has transformed his life almost a year on.
The 22-year-old former Thames Valley prop plans to support his old team in the Heartland Championship, which kicks off next weekend, even though he can no longer play.
Last September Anderson collided with another player during his first game for Thames Valley and broke his left tibia and fibula.
He had surgery at Waikato Hospital and “woke up two weeks later”. Cassy Appleton’s New Year resolution was to do something worthwhile.
The Christchurch-based Virgin Australia flight attendant wanted to do something beyond the standard losing weight, stopping smoking or drinking more water.
“My New Year’s resolution was to become more charitable — my current drive is to collect bras for the women of Fiji.”
Tomorrow she’ll start handing out more than 4000 bras she’s collected through a social media
Doctors had to act fast to save his life, putting him into an induced coma, after he developed a rare fat embolism syndrome, where fat leaks into the bloodstream and can cause serious damage to internal organs.
It caused a lung infection and when Anderson’s condition deteriorated dramatically he was put on life support. His father Barry Anderson was told he had an 8 per cent chance of surviving.
“Bone marrow snapped off. They call it a fatty embolism and from that it travelled through my blood system to my lungs and collapsed my lungs. I wasn’t meant to wake up.”
But after 12 days in a coma and almost four weeks in hospital, campaign, notices in Virgin Australia crew rooms around the country and word of mouth. The parcels, weighing 350kg, will be flown to Fiji by the airline.
Appleton does regular trips to the Anderson returned home to Mount Maunganui.
“I’m still recovering. My nerve still hasn’t recovered. I can’t walk properly — I have to lift my knee a bit higher. I can’t run.”
Doctors inserted a metal rod into Anderson’s leg via his knee. It’s unclear how his common peroneal nerve was damaged but he now suffers from weakness in his lower left leg and foot.
Two months after discharge from hospital Anderson walked up Mauao, complaining all the way and feeling sorry for himself.
“I was having a bit of a sulk about my foot and just before I got to the top a man with two artificial legs came down and I was like ‘flippin’ heck, if he can do it, stop being a sulk’. “I got over myself when I saw someone else in a worse situation.” Another inspiration was friend Cody Everson, who was paralysed in an awkward tackle while playing schoolboy rugby in Christchurch, but who now represents New Zealand in the Wheel Blacks.
Instead he channels his energy by working out two hours each day at the gym. He has regained the 18kg lost while ill and bulked up another 7kg. Anderson has undergone two nerve conduction tests so far and no one a Virgin Australia partner.
“To learn about the minimum wage and living conditions does pull on your heart strings a bit — their children come before luxuries. “It’s nice to provide them with something that makes them feel good.
“We all have a bra in a drawer that we haven’t worn for however long that we could easily donate to someone else,” Appleton said. seems to be able to permanent prognosis.
“They can’t tell me [if it will fully recover]. It could be another year, they don’t know.”
However Anderson optimistic the damage temporary.
His lungs have fully recovered and he was eventually able to return to work as a vocational moulder for ovens and water tanks.
And while Anderson had another setback six weeks ago he has chalked it up to “bad luck”.
“I tore my ACL [anterior cruciate ligament] in the right leg, so I’ll need surgery on that eventually. I was just walking down some stairs and it just gave out. It was overcompensating.”
Anderson is now focusing on getting his health back to 100 per cent and is looking forward to attending his eldest sister’s wedding in Perth in October. determine
aremains will be