Christmas Appeal
Like most parents, I’m a very careful mum. Boiling pots and pans, swimming pools and busy roads. Everyone knows they’re dangerous. From an early age, I taught Cameron to keep away from them.
What I didn’t expect was that Cameron’s life would
be threatened by something I have walked past
every day, leaving him with permanent injury.
My name is Elizabeth, and I’d like to tell you what happened a few years ago to my happy, vibrant
four year old son.
spending another Christmas
together thanks to CareFlight.
I knew something was wrong
It was a Friday afternoon in November 2008. Cameron was in his room, playing with his toys, like any other toddler.
Suddenly, it went quiet.
I knew right away that something was wrong. I ran up to his room on the first floor. The window was open, the flyscreen gone. So was Cameron.
When I looked out of the window, there he was, lying on the concrete in the back yard.
I ran out of the door - the only way to the back of the house was through the garage - grabbing the phone and calling 000 on the way. I found Cameron on the ground, blood coming from his nose.
To look at him, you’d never know just how broken his little body actually was. But he was making the most terrible moaning I’d ever heard.
I went into total shock. I tried to keep him still, stop him moving, but it was difficult: he kept drifting in and out of consciousness. Time went into slow motion and the ambulance seemed to take forever.
Then CareFlight arrived. It was amazing
When the ambulance arrived, they stabilised him and cleaned him up.
Then the CareFlight trauma team arrived. It was amazing.
Cameron was conscious by then. It was obvious to the doctor that he had a major head injury. To stop him from moving around, the CareFlight team put Cameron into an induced coma. He had to be stabilised before they could transfer him to the ambulance which took us to the chopper.
I cannot thank them enough
have been so much worse.
When we arrived at the hospital, it was clear that Cameron was badly hurt.
That devastating fall from the first floor window onto the concrete below had broken seven ribs and his collar bone, fractured his eye and his cheek, given him blood clots in his lungs, and damaged his eye.
I now know that what CareFlight were most concerned about was a brain injury. Their aim was to stabilise Cameron and get him to a neurosurgeon so they could repair any haemorrhage in the brain.
I cannot thank them enough for the amazing work they did that day.
Keep the CareFlight doctors in the air
Today, Cameron still suffers from the effects. The injury to his eye means the pupil can’t dilate, so he has difficulty seeing in low light. More worrying, his frontal lobe was damaged.
Cameron will have behavioural issues for the rest of his life. But it could have been so much worse. If CareFlight hadn’t protected him from secondary injury as he struggled, the brain damage could have left him completely disabled. Only a specialist doctor can apply the techniques necessary.
Thankfully, the CareFlight doctor and crew were on the scene that day.
CareFlight did an amazing job - very professional
It costs thousands of dollars every time they lift off, but the price of a child's life is impossible to measure. Cameron would be facing a life with so many more challenges if it hadn't been for CareFlight.
as we move into the warmer months, how many more children will fall from a window or balcony and be hurt, permanently injured, or worse?
All I can say is that I'm so grateful CareFlight were there - and that they continue to be there for so many.
Yours,
Elizabeth
Fortunate and grateful mum
PS It's frightening every time I hear about another child falling out of a window. It happens to one child every week. Please check your windows: a flyscreen is just not safe enough. Thank you.
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