Lasting scars
But after four nerve-wracking hours, the surgery was successful. The same Life Flight Trust plane that flew Andre to Wellington immediately returned to Nelson to take his father back to the capital.
For the next 10 days the pair were in intensive care. During this period Andrea suffered flashbacks, the moment of the collision replaying on a terrible, repetitive loop.
‘‘It was very scary and physically draining,’’ she says. Thankfully a trauma specialist recognised the signs and explained it was the brain’s response to trauma, and it gradually subsided after 10 days.
When father and son returned to wards there was a touching reunion as Dan was wheeled into Andre’s room. Andrea recalls another visit when Dan told her he was just going to shut his eyes for a minute. ‘‘The next thing he’s asleep and then I looked over at Andre and he was asleep as well.’’
‘‘So I sat there with two boys having a wee sleep together,’’ Andrea says.
‘‘Party in the boys’ room,’’ says Dan.
It was a bright spot in a dark time. When Andre had been brought out of sedation, a CT scan revealed he had suffered a stroke, thought to be caused by the impact, leaving him without movement on his right side. He couldn’t walk, move his right arm or hand and lacked the strength to hold his head up.
It was a particularly cruel blow because Andre has Fragile X, a genetic condition resulting in a range of developmental and behavioural issues. For Andre it has meant a significant learning disability, high anxiety and sensory issues.
‘‘All the sensory things we find easy are hard for him,’’ Andrea says. It added a layer of complication, requiring medical staff, for example, to be simple and direct in their interactions. But in other ways it may have helped in his long recovery.
While other children may have struggled to accept their injuries, ‘‘Andre just accepted every moment for what it was, he was really determined and focused.’’
Andre was transferred to the Wilson Centre in Auckland, the only residential rehabilitation facility for children in the country, where the hard work began.
For the next four months the family was split; Andrea in Auckland with Andre, Dan in Wellington, then Nelson. Yasmina, in her first year at Nelson College for Girls, stayed with Dan’s mother Olywyn – ‘‘one of the real heroes of this story,’’ says Dan – to try to keep some sense of normality.
At the Wilson centre Andre’s daily companions were physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech language therapists and other rehabilitation experts.
Initially he needed a hoist to be moved from his bed to a wheelchair, but gradually over four months he regained movement in his right leg and strength to learn to walk again.
‘‘He worked incredibly hard in therapy; they were delighted and amazed by him,’’ Andrea says.
Andre still doesn’t have a functional grip in his right hand, and walks with a limp. The thin physio tape strips are supporting his range of motion. He still gets physio twice a week and it’s likely he will have a lifelong weakness on his right side.
For Dan it was a succession of surgeries. He needed a stoma bag after having 20cm of his small bowel removed. It was uncertain whether he would need the bag permanently but doctors managed to successfully ‘‘replumb’’ him. He was discharged from hospital in June but has had multiple surgeries on his various injuries, and faces several more.
He finally returned to his technical consultant job at Computer Concepts Ltd in January this year, nine months after the accident. He says the firm’s support has been exceptional: ‘‘They really went above and beyond to make sure everything was ok’’.
Dan and Andrea say they do not spend time thinking about the driver of the other car. The Wellington man was convicted on four counts of aggravated careless driving causing injury (two of the occupants of his car were also injured) and paid reparation of $5000.
‘‘You can’t dwell on what other people do, (and) we just focus on putting all your energy into what we can control and getting a positive outcome for our family,’’ Andrea says.