‘You have just got to live with it’
Mum-of-four looks to new career after workplace falls puts her in wheelchair
Two years ago Stephanie McLean awoke to find herself at the back of a flour mill sprawled on the ground, pain radiating across her body snapped in two by a horror fall.
She was alone and in and out of consciousness after tumbling from a ladder that slipped as she repaired a grain conveyor leak at the Champion mill in Christchurch.
The injury proved life-changing for the maintenance worker and mumof-four, who was last month awarded $100,000 after WorkSafe prosecuted the company for its safety failings in the 2018 accident. The mill was also fined $310,000.
Now in a wheelchair, McLean, 49, is rebuilding her life after the devastating spinal cord injury robbed her from the use of her legs.
McLean can still remember the events leading up to the fateful plunge. But much of the following week is a blur after she suffered severe injuries — including smashing all her ribs, cracking her skull and a brain bleed.
“I was up on a platform to get to the pipe leak which was about 4m in the air. As I pulled the piece out to take down and get repaired I went to climb down the ladder. The ladder slipped out from underneath me and I fell to the ground.”
She was wearing a harness, but there were no anchor points to attach to. Normally two people did the task with one holding the ladder, but McLean said her colleague didn’t come to work that day, and with a grain shipment due, there was pressure to fix the leak.
“I don’t remember the fall. I woke up on the ground and I couldn’t move my legs,” said McLean. “I yelled out but nobody could hear me.
“I managed to get my phone out of my pocket and ring my boss and told him ‘come quick, I’m in trouble’.”
She was rushed to Christchurch Hospital where doctors operated on her spinal column immediately, putting in titanium rods. After a week in hospital, she was transferred to the Burwood Spinal Unit, where medical staff confirmed her worst fears.
“The first thing they do is tell you that you’ll never walk again. It really devastates you. You hope for the best but when you hear it from the doctor, it’s the worst thing in the world.”
She said the past two years had been incredibly trying.
“I have to rebuild my entire life at age 49. My life has been destroyed. I can’t do my job ever again that I’ve done for 30-odd years, so I now have to recover from my injury, relearn how to do everything again, and take on a new career.”
She said there had been very dark episodes, including depression, anxiety and excruciating pain.
“Depression sets in rather quickly and hard. It’s the five stages of grief. There is a lot of grieving. It’s like losing a loved one. You lost who you were.”
She said it had taken a toll on her family, with her children seeing a side of her she went to great lengths to conceal.
“You try to protect them from it as best you can but it comes out when you get overwhelmed. I remember when I first came home I was screaming
in pain at night because of nerve pain. I had my son living with me and he had to move out because he couldn’t handle the dark sides of it.”
She said anger at her situation had been replaced with frustration at her inability to reverse the damage.
“You’ve just got to live with it. And that’s the hardest thing to do and I still haven’t managed to do that yet.”
Incredibly she did not resent her former employer despite the enormous personal toll.
“I definitely don’t have any ill will towards Champion Flour. I know it
was a lapse and they’ve sorted that out straight away now and they were always very supportive of me.”
With increased mobility, including learning how to drive and navigate her wheelchair, life was improving. She had started to look towards the future, contemplating a career in design engineering.
“So it’s a very long journey ahead of me but it does get better as you get on through the years. A spinal cord injury is going to break you, it’s going to change you and it’s going to make you. In that order.”
There is a lot of grieving. It’s like losing a loved one. You lost who you were. Stephanie McLean