Matthew Burchell, pictured with his written-off Yamaha R3 motorcycle, nearly lost his left arm in a collision with a car last November. Photo / Michael Bradley
Matthew Burchell was cruising down Coromandel Peninsula’s State Highway 25 on a late Friday afternoon last November when his motorcycle and a car collided at Te Mata. He spoke to Cherie Howie about the crash that nearly took his arm, and the community that came to help.
Warning: Graphic details
He was wiggling his fingers, but Matthew Burchell wasn’t convinced his left arm was still attached to his body.
Moments before he’d been torpedoed into, and then over, an SUV Burchell says drove into the path of his motorcycle on a Friday night ride along a beautiful stretch of coastal Coromandel Peninsula highway.
Now - to reassure the 22-year-old his arm was still there - shocked passersby were telling him they could see compound fractures in his forearm and bicep, and the broken bones were not only sticking out of his skin, but through his motorcycle jacket.
“The people who stopped, they were making out that my arm was pretty bad”, says Burchell, speaking publicly for the first time about the pleasure ride last November that ended so disastrously.
“And I was asking them, ‘Do you think I’m gonna lose my arm?’, and they were just doing the classic, ‘Oh, it’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay’.
“I was like, ‘Don’t bulls*** me. Just tell me - is my arm even on my body still?’”
Flat on his back on the bitumen of State Highway 25 just outside Te Mata, 20km north of Thames, Burchell initially felt little pain.
“I’m usually a bit of a sucker for getting the man flu and I’m not very good at pain, but it was really surprising how the adrenaline kicked in. I didn’t cry or scream or anything.”
But he knew his injuries, which also included a badly broken right wrist and thumb, were serious.
And though those first on the scene had promised his much more seriously injured left arm was still there - they could see his wiggling fingers, and he could even feel the digits moving - Burchell dared not look.
“I could feel my fingers, but then I was also aware people lose their arms and can still feel their phantom fingers.”
Roadside assurances, too, offered solace only for the present, as his thoughts lingered on what lay ahead for his horrifically injured limb.
“I didn’t know if I’d wake up [later] with my arm or not.”
Only an hour or so earlier Burchell was enjoying the view at Manaia Rd Saddle and Lookout, cruising north on his Yamaha R3 after finishing work at Watson Engineering for the week.
“It was a nice evening, and just a nice wind down for a big week - well, it was meant to be anyway.”
It was on the way home to his shared flat in Thames when Burchell rounded a corner into Te Mata, travelling about 70km/h, to see a red SUV at a stop sign-controlled intersection.
“I just didn’t think they were going to go … and then at the last minute, they just pulled out in front of me. They must have panicked and they just hit the brakes and stopped right in the middle of the lane, and I had nowhere to go and no time to do anything.”
A police investigation into the crash is ongoing.
The last thing Burchell saw before impact was the small indicator on the side of the car, before hearing his motorcycle and body crash into the SUV, “cleaning up” the windscreen and the forward-most roof pillar (A pillar) that supports it, he says.
“It went black and white and I remember a somersault feeling a couple of times, and then I just woke up on the ground, ears ringing and a bit of a wobbly head.
“I was thinking, ‘Is this real?’ I was just praying it was a dream.”
Burchell’s helmet and full motorcycle wear kit had protected him from even more serious injuries, but it was quickly clear his arms were in a bad way.
“I tried to move them and they just wouldn’t move, so it was like, ‘Oh, here we go’.”
As those first on the scene called emergency services, others asked Burchell if there was anyone else they should call.
Yes, he said: My mum.
Still on his back, but with his helmet having been taken off, the phone was held to Burchell’s ear.
“I just said, ‘Look, I’ve been in an accident. I’m alright but my arms aren’t good’.”
It was important he made the call, Burchell says.
“Mum said [later] the fact that I was so calm kept her so calm.”
It helped that Thames-raised and educated Burchell knew so many of the first responders who came to his aid, among them two colleagues.
As his 17-year-old workmate Finlay Lyon - a Tapu Volunteer Fire Brigade firefighter - held the stricken motorcyclist’s head still while ambulance officers got to work, Burchell found himself cracking jokes.
“I told him to tell the foreman that I’ll be late for work on Monday, and he said, ‘I think he’ll know about this, Matt’.
“It was nice to have someone to connect with that I knew, and to have something to laugh about, rather than worry about what was actually going on.”
It was just before sundown when Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter arrived to fly Burchell to Waikato Hospital, an addition to the emergency response that left the injured motorcyclist with mixed feelings.
“It was a bit of a frightening thought. If you ever hear anyone’s going in a rescue helicopter, it’s usually not too good.
“But I also knew I was going to get looked after. So it was 50/50 how I was feeling about it.”
The first task for pre-hospital and retrieval medicine doctor Kathryn Compson and critical care paramedic Marcel Driessen was to check their new patient for life-threatening injuries, while also giving him strong pain relief, with his post-crash adrenaline having now worn off.
Using a small ultrasound probe connected to a cellphone - acting as a screen - they scanned his chest and abdomen for injuries, Compson says.
“We wanted to make sure we weren’t missing anything, because the pain in his arms was so bad that he could’ve had other significant injuries and not even realised.
“Nothing appeared immediately life-threatening, but he certainly had limb-threatening injuries, particularly to his left arm.”
They then straightened his left arm to get blood flowing into his hand again, put in splints and got Burchell ready for the short ambulance ride to the rescue helicopter.
After final preparations to make sure the young motorcylist’s condition was stable, pilot Aaron Knight took off at 8.25pm.
Thirty-two minutes later, Burchell was at Waikato Hospital, and had a new rival football fan to banter with.
Compson, a London native who splits her work between the rescue helicopter and Auckland City Hospital’s emergency department, supports Chelsea - a sporting connection of sorts with Nottingham Forrest fan Burchell, Compson says.
“We carry lots of medicines to keep people’s blood pressure up, but I guess there’s nothing like a bit of sporting rivalry to get the blood pressure up.
“And people like Matthew, straight up they’re gonna be in for a long medical journey, so anything you can do to give some semblance of normality, reassurance or even a bit of distraction is good.”
After all, no one expects to find themselves 1000 metres up, souped on heavy painkillers and at the beginning of a journey whose end is unknown.
One moment you’re on a nice sunset ride, says Compson, and the next “you’re lying on a road, completely helpless and in just so much pain”.
“And I think we often forget, we always go to work expecting to see patients - but most people don’t expect to see us.”
He’s benched for the coming local football season, says Burchell, of his goalkeeping spot in Thames FC’s mens’ side.
But his flat - he’s back living with mum while he recovers - and his apprenticeship remain open, and he plans to return to both, he says.
“It’s nice being back with mum, back with my family. But I really miss my independence.
“It’s those small things you take for granted, like being able to blow your own nose or scratch your head.”
A week in hospital included an eight-hour surgery the day after his crash, with two later surgeries - including last week - both repairing and laying bare the damage inflicted last November.
Burchell’s left elbow is “full of steel”, and the right-hander also has plates and screws in his right wrist.
“Afterwards I was told a few of the health people said they’ve seen people lose their arms for a similar kind of thing.
“And the surgeon [Mark Huang] told me when they opened my arm up to repair it, it took them half an hour to figure out where everything was meant to go, where everything had gone and what was missing.”
Meanwhile, Burchell’s right thumb was “shattered into so many bits” no screws could piece it back together.
“They had to pretty much lock the joint by putting wires through my wrist … in the hope the smashed bone would gel itself back together that way.”
While his right hand is expected to improve with therapy, there’s no timeline for his left arm - although it was positive that severe nerve damage in his left hand had eased, and he was getting more movement back.
“All the doctors say nerves are just funny things. They can take months or years to come back to how they were, if they come back.”
Last year, 53 motorcyclists died on New Zealand roads, up three on 2022 and among 343 people killed on our roads overall. Sixty-seven people died on Waikato roads last year.
Burchell isn’t among that sad toll, and that’s something he can’t forget.
“It’s lucky I’m still here and that I have the opportunity to make a recovery, and there isn’t going to be too many big restrictions in the long run.
“Even on the down days you’ve got to remind yourself: It could be so much worse.”
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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