Three days to watch a beloved sister die

Karen Jolly died from injuries received when her car was hit at a West Auckland intersection.

The brother of Karen Jolly wrote this heartfelt account for the sentencing yesterday of the man who drove a car into her vehicle at high speed. The 44-year-old mother died three days after the accident 

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It must have been less than a minute as my sister waited her turn at the intersection. She would have had no idea that a few days later her damaged, lifeless body would be buried just 50m from the accident.

She had no idea that two strangers were speeding towards her like torpedoes on that dark, fine night.

The car in front, a family within, moved out and took its place in front of the approaching speedsters. My sister moved forward.

For a moment or two she waited. It was 6.30pm on May 7, 2005, two weeks before her 45th birthday.

Then one of the speeding drivers mounted an island. A split second after smashing into her door she was dead. Like a gale thrashing a tree, her upper body, retained in her seated position, jerked terrifyingly from side to side. This led to the disconnection of her brain. The hard seatbelt made a hole below her shoulder.

The antagonist walked off unharmed but had fatally wounded my sister. Strangely, I was only 1km away and had no idea that my sister was in such an unnatural, misshapen condition in a wrecked car. She was revived at the scene but was deeply unconscious.

At 7.20pm the phone rang. Karen had been in a motor accident and could die. Blurred disbelief. It couldn't be this serious, could it?

There she lay in critical care with a wound to her chest and head semi-shaven, blood dripping from one side. Plastic tubes lay here and there. Her useless arms lay perfectly at her sides.
For a moment she didn't look like my sister. Then horror. Instant tears. My beautiful sister's fate was sealed. I looked up. There were all these people. Most I didn't know. It seemed crazy. One minute my family is in peaceful calm and the next in frenzied confusion. Amid it Karen remained inert and unaware.

I went home. Then the mental torment began. What if? If only! Perhaps she will be okay or maybe in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Then no sleep.

Back to the hospital. And the people again. My sister had touched all these people, hundreds of them. She lay there; her wounds were patched and apart from slight damage to her skull, she appeared strangely normal.

She reminded me of a once beautiful ship that died in the prime of life, blessed with grace, fortitude and elegance, lying motionless on the ocean floor. I grasped her hand. No response. The metallic machine keeping her alive gave it warmth. I was overwhelmed.

Then came the family room. The doctor's report with the conclusive prognosis. The tests had been done. Her body, so much a vibrant life force the day before, responded to nothing. Not to pain or light.

I thanked them for trying to save my sister; for their humbleness, honesty and respect to Karen.

Tears rolled down their cheeks. It wasn't fair. We gave permission to disconnect the life-giving machine. Unaware, Karen then could breathe for herself. My sister was freed of machinery and artificial support. There she lay in the clinical, warm environment away from her familiar home dressed in her favourite clothes.

I placed seven frangipani blooms in what remained of her hair. I picked up her hand and entwined her slim, delicate fingers. Only an occasional twitch could be felt by some involuntary bodily function. I raised her right eyelid and gazed into the fabulously large pupil that could once respond to sight. Not even a teardrop. It was now time to absorb the details; her slimness, her delicate fingernails, her diminutive feet.

The queues of people took their turn at her side. Each one moved off as if paying respects to a princess. More tears.

Her heart kept beating.

Then the final day. I entered the room and was surprised at the absence of people. I requested my father to be present. A family friend would also be present.

As if Karen was waiting for this moment, my father clasped her left hand and I clasped the other. Our friend held and stood at her head. My sister began to alter. It was 11am. Her heart was struggling to maintain itself. Each beat now under stress, and much further apart than the previous one, caused a drawn-out exhalation.

Her face began blotching and changing colour as her lungs barely coped with the lack of oxygen. Our friend was praying. I too began to pray, but with no idea who to. Our eyes fixed on her face. As we watched, useless to help, the end was set in motion. Karen exhaled her final breath. It was over. It was 11.23am, May 10, 2005. She would be laid to rest forever one week before her birthday.

I retrieved the clothes she was wearing at the time of the crash and took them home. More tears. More stress. Then the funeral. The people again. And the flowers; the cards kept coming for weeks. Then the media, again and again. It seemed like ammunition constantly regurgitating the memory of my sister's final moments.

The grief continues. And it continues. The inability to be happy, the irritations and all of the other mental afflictions that come with it. Our family is diminished and ruined.

We maintain her sepulchral garden in the windswept graveyard. I wonder what the point of anything is. Life is a fatal condition from birth. Death is life's reward and who is to know where one starts and the other ends.

I write this here among the trees in a peaceful place and I notice a perfectly shaped cross among the forest debris looking directly at me. Perhaps life begins there.

Her Brother