Unlucky break for TV reporter

By MONIQUE DEVEREUX

Former television news reporter Charlotte Glennie is used to asking the questions rather than answering them.

But propped up in her Auckland Hospital bed yesterday, she had no trouble retelling the story of the accident that almost killed her while on holiday in Croatia.

Ms Glennie, who left her Wellington-based political reporting job with TVNZ last year, has been in three hospitals and under various surgeons' knives since her July 4 fall on to rocks.

The fall broke both legs, her wrist, jaw and two toes and smashed her right kneecap.

She and a friend had driven down to Dubrovnik from Germany. The holiday was the last stage of Ms Glennie's 10-month trek to London from New Zealand and she had already travelled through most of Asia.

She was due to fly to the UK on July 12, and planned to live and work there.

The 29-year-old had been swimming in Dubrovnik beside the old town wall. She ventured out on to a rocky cliff edge to admire the Adriatic Coast, but lost her balance. Her wet feet stopped her regaining her footing and she tumbled 8m to the rocks below.

She lay there - bleeding and broken, with a smashed thigh bone protruding out of her skin - for an hour before ambulance officers could winch her up and take her to hospital.

Breakages and blood loss had left her in a critical condition. But she remained conscious throughout the ordeal.

The first thing she thought of after hitting the rocks was that she "had to get through it - I couldn't die yet".

"I asked my friend to give me mouth-to-mouth, but I didn't really need it. It was just the first thing I thought to ask for."

Emergency surgery in Dubrovnik helped repair the damage to both thighs and her wrist. And she needed enough blood to replace her body's entire supply.

Surgeons used to dealing with war injuries likened the damage to Ms Glennie's bones to bullet wounds.

"The x-rays are pretty dramatic."

It was in the Croatian hospital that Ms Glennie first asked doctors if she would walk again. The answer was, "we think so".

Her travel insurance company - "Mike Henry Ltd, and honestly I just cannot praise them enough" - had her mother on a plane from New Zealand to Dubrovnik in days.

Ms Glennie's father also arrived from Australia.

The trio were then transported to the private Wellington Hospital in London by Learjet.

After more surgery to her wrist and jaw, Ms Glennie and her parents flew back to New Zealand. She has been in Auckland Hospital for three weeks and hopes to be transferred to a rehabilitation unit, and to be home in a month.

Ms Glennie will have to learn to walk again as her damaged legs adjust to the plates, pins and screws that keep them together.

She says it may be six months before she is back on her feet properly and she will not make a hasty return to New Zealand television screens. She plans to return to London as soon as possible, to pick up where she left off.

"I had a fantastic first 10 months on this OE. This is just a bit of an unfortunate break in it, so to speak."