< back to Sandra's blogDay 35 - Five weeks after the crash

I don't like Thursdays. The count down to 7.15am makes me feel ill.

7am five weeks ago - Dad would have been leaving the house. In my mind I watch his shoes as they shuffle towards the car carrying his big heavy stature.

7.05am - Dad would have been driving now. I can picture the car, innocently driving, just like any other day, unknowingly driving him to his fate.

7:15am – Dad would have been approaching a slight S bend and preparing to follow the road to the left, when a car coming from the opposite direction throws itself over the median strip and smashes senselessly into him. Both cars halt in an instant and the car bodies disintegrate into a tangled mess of metal and broken glass.

7.20am - Dad had now become a traffic hazard broadcast on the radio to the fast approaching peak hour traffic.

8.30am - My sister, Dianne, was taking David, her two-year-old son for swimming classes.

8:45am – An ambulance officer who had been holding Dad’s legs, finally recognises him. He calls his wife who works with Mum. Mum’s work friend is shocked and upset and tells him where the police can find Mum.

9.00am - Mum calls me from a country town in South Australia called Millicent, where she is working for the week to see what I’ve been ‘up to’.

 9:05am - Major crash police in Adelaide notify a policeman in Millicent. He grabs his keys and heads out the door. 

9.15am – Mid-conversation, Mum tells me to hold on for a second, someone is here to see her. She was gone for ages and well, if truth be told, I actually went to the toilet. She came back and said, "Sandra, your Father's been in a car accident. You've got to get to the hospital. He has massive life threatening head injuries, multiple fractures, wildly fluctuating blood pressure and has already died twice."

This time five weeks ago our lives fell apart.

I can still see myself standing there. I’ll never forget that space, standing completely still and knowing that my life had just changed, completely. I called my sister and we agreed to meet at her house, we would then go to the hospital together. I then rang a taxi; I didn't think I should drive. My perception of driving, cars and road safety were altered from that moment on.

The taxi driver arrived at the door and my first words to him were “I feel like I’m off my face”. He glanced suspiciously at me as I got in the car. I was mumbling strings of incoherent words. I wanted to go to my sister, Dianne’s house, but I couldn't remember where she lived. His growing frustration with this ‘freak’ in the car accelerated when he pulled out onto Sir Donald Bradman Drive. The traffic was unusually heavy, bumper-to-bumper. Mum had told me on the phone where the accident had occurred but it hadn’t registered, until now.

“F..., this is my Dad’s accident”. All of a sudden I was coherent and he understood. He was now my champion, driving over the medium strip to get out of the traffic; he would get me to where I needed to go with or without my help.  He found the street for me and dropped me off, but Dianne wasn't there, she'd gone to get Nanna, to take her to the hospital. Dianne’s mother in law was urging me to wait; “they will only be a minute”, she said, but I felt like I was in a surreal movie, and in the movies you have to get to the hospital right away - every second counts. The taxi driver who had driven off earlier suddenly reappeared, asking me, "Do you want me to take you to the hospital?" I jumped in the car and he drove me to town. When we arrived he wouldn't take any money. 

Written on 14 Apr 2004
Over 8 years since incident
Tags: major crash, Traffic hazard, thinking, Sandra's story

Tribute pin