Warning: Graphic image
Abby Brown knew things were bad as she lay prone on the ground, four or five metres below the rail bridge she’d just tumbled off.
Quite how bad - and how life-changing - that fall would turn out to be she’d find out later.
For now, she was still alive. And she was still “Mum”.
It’s the word she’d heard her eldest son scream as she came off the bridge in a disastrous end to what was meant to be a fun afternoon biking through bush and forestry tracks in rural North Auckland on Boxing Day 2022.
“One minute I was on my bike and the next I was mid-air. I tried to grab the bridge, which put me into a cartwheel [spin] down to the ground.
“I hit hard and my head spun for a second, and I heard [my son] scream ‘Mum’. And I was like, ‘No, I’m okay’.”
That wasn’t the case.
She’d landed on her left side and, while her helmet-clad head wasn’t affected, her back was both dislocated and broken. She also had broken ribs, a cut to one kidney and a lung injury.
The 40-year-old had, fortunately, just missed landing on a large tree stump. It was close enough to touch.
Brown’s thoughts went immediately to her child.
“I was trying to remain calm for my son’s sake. If he panicked, I was going to panic.”
She offered words of encouragement as the 15-year-old first tried calling 111, and then texting his dad, Clifford Brown.
But mother and son were in the bush north of Hōteo, 20km northwest of Warkworth, and there was no cellphone reception.
He’d have to go for help.
Using Brown’s e-bike, the 15-year-old - who didn’t want his name included in the Herald story - cycled back to where a family were camping, his unsent text pinging off to his dad somewhere along the way.
Her husband, knowing only that his wife had gone off a bridge, tried to call 111, Brown says.
But although he had a phone location app showing where Brown was, and that his son was moving away from her, he couldn’t figure out where they were.
“He was driving from our place [4km east of Tauhoa] to Kaipara Flats to see if we were on the side of the road … and he was trying to be brave and not show concern because he had [our younger son] Ray with him.”
Meanwhile, their eldest son had reached the camping family, raising the alarm around 6pm.
She’s “so proud” of her boy, Brown says.
“Historically, he’s been quite reserved but for him to go to these complete strangers and ask for help was absolutely massive.”
One of the campers was soon at Brown’s side.
“That lady, she was just so calm. She just sat there and talked to me and kept me company, and made sure I was comfortable.”
Wellsford Volunteer Fire Brigade firefighters were next to arrive, followed by the noise of the Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter’s rotors above.
“That was the biggest relief. A [road] ambulance was never going to get into where I was.”
She couldn’t feel her legs, but didn’t fear paralysis, Brown says.
“I thought I’d done something to my pelvis. It felt like my pelvis was massive, I didn’t even think it was my back.”
What she could feel, however, was pain during moments where she needed to be moved - an “excruciating” experience that made bringing two babies into the world seem like a doddle.
“It was so much worse than childbirth. It was next level.”
Rescue helicopter critical care paramedic Alice Tolich, winched down to help Brown alongside colleague and fellow critical care paramedic Andreas Schold, was quick to administer “lots of pain relief”.
She remembers Brown being “very calm” and the whole extraction taking place smoothly.
Firefighters helped move the mum-of-two onto a spinal board and she was stretchered a short distance to a clearing, before being winched up to the AW-169 helicopter as Tolich batted away a spider trying to hitch a ride on Brown.
By 8.30pm, they were on their way to Auckland City Hospital.
“Everyone was really helpful. She was really calm. Fire and Emergency were great. Everyone made the job go smoothly.”
Relief would come after surgery to straighten the new S shape out of Brown’s spine, and for a rod and screws to keep it that way.
Recovery, which began with a month in Middlemore Hospital and continued with two months in a specialist spinal unit, was a different story.
The dislocation and fractures to her T10/T11 vertebrae mean Brown is paralysed from the waist down.
She has a little movement in one leg. It’s “nothing of any use to me”, Brown says.
“Probably it’s a little bit of a crystal ball thing. In Middlemore, I was basically told ‘you won’t walk again’.
“But I like to defy the odds.”
Whatever’s to come, she’s staying upbeat.
“You have to be. I was in the spinal unit at Middlemore with people so much worse off than I am.
“So although I might not be able to use my legs, I’ve got the whole upper body, which gives me pretty much complete independence.”
She made sure she was able to take care of her own toileting, showering and dressing before leaving the spinal unit, Brown says.
The owner of Warkworth’s Sphere Chartered Accountants has mastered driving using hand controls and logged some hours back at work, although her main focus is on her rehab. Brown and her husband also run a couple of hundred ewes and 20 cows on their 28ha farm.
Of course, there are still challenges, she says.
“Terrible” neuropathic [nerve] pain is part of life now, and because her bladder and bowel “don’t work like they used to”, a lot more planning around things like loo breaks is needed when she’s away from home.
“But you learn through your journey, because that’s just what you’ve got to do.”
Brown’s story is both a cautionary tale, and one of gratitude.
Life has special value to those who nearly lose it, and Brown knows a different story could be being told about Boxing Day 2022.
“I probably value each day more than I did before ... I could not be here at all.”
It was her decision to bike along the railway line, after realising the only way home either involved lifting her e-bike over fallen trees or going up a massive hill.
“It was such a stupid idea, and when we got to the bridge the idea of, ‘shall I cross this?’ didn’t even come into my mind. I just rode it.
“My son was like, ‘Mum, you should be pushing your bike’, and the next minute I was in the air. It was a stupid decision - the shortcut home ended up being a three-month trip.”
More than that, she wants to thank those who, without judgment, came to her aid.
“That first lady, she was just so calm. And then there was the fire brigade, they carried me on the stretcher a little way. And the [Auckland] Westpac Rescue Helicopter, I can’t express enough the value of having that service - it’s a service that, pre-accident, you don’t think you’ll ever need.
“When the helicopter came, I knew everything was going to be okay. I knew it sucked, but it was gonna be okay.”
Cherie Howie is an Auckland-based reporter who joined the Herald in 2011. She has been a journalist for more than 20 years and specialises in general news and features.
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