Surf Cat

It was a moment – just a moment – of inattention, but it almost cost Naomi Jefferies​ her life.

In September 2017, Naomi remembers being an active and healthy 28-year-old. She loved wakeboarding, snowboarding, hiking, going to the gym and working as a physiotherapist.

One September evening, Naomi returned to her car after a session at her Waikato gym. Her car was parked on a grass verge and she was standing beside it when a passing driver became distracted and plowed into her.

In that moment she was thrown about 7 metres across the road. Her life “forever changed”.

READ MORE:
* Youth camp for amputees to ‘Give it a Go’
* Amputee model Jess Quinn’s journey to self-acceptance
* Senses offer new hope for amputees suffering phantom pain
* Wellington student’s project lets amputees design their own artificial limb covers

BROKEN AND SHATTERED BUT ALIVE

Naomi says she doesn’t remember the accident “but I was awake the whole time apparently from what they’ve told me”.

Her left leg was degloved – the fat and skin had been ripped off, leaving just her muscle exposed. Her left ankle and femur were shattered. All of the breaks in her leg were compound fractures – the bones protruding through skin. The ligaments in both her knees were ruptured, her right foot was broken and her back was also broken in two places.

The ribs on her left-hand side were smashed, she had a flail chest, a collapsed lung, broken sternum, shoulder blade and both her elbow and humerus were shattered.

“Obviously I was quite a mess,” she says. But, she was alive.

Following the accident, she spent 10 days in a coma and then three weeks in intensive care. After four months in hospital and about 12 surgeries later, Naomi returned home.

But a bad infection forced her back in hospital. Her ankle was also “broken beyond repair” and would likely be painful in future. So Naomi eventually made the decision to have her left leg amputated below the knee.

The amputation was Naomi’s turning point and to this day, she says she has no regrets. “I started to feel a whole lot better, and I was able to move around a lot more and I was in less pain and way more functional without my leg than I had been with it.”

Naomi’s journey has been long and painful – with 17 surgeries, and more skin grafts to come. She describes it as a rollercoaster with “lots of ups and downs”.

“To start with it was pretty horrendous. I would be down and cry for hours at a time.” In the beginning she was also angry with the man who hit her, but a year-and-a-half later, that anger has gone.

“I think when you’re presented in a situation like this where it’s pretty bloody horrible, you can either dwell on it and sulk about it or you can get on with it.” Instead of wasting energy on something she couldn’t change, she’s focused on her recovery.

Although she still has down days, she knows it’s normal and it’s all part of the process. “I very nearly died the night I got hit and I think part of me did die, and so [on] those days I sort of feel like I’m mourning that part of me and I think that’s totally normal and you’ve got to allow yourself to do that.”

She also reminds herself that she “could have been so much worse off”.

Throughout everything, Naomi has been supported by her family and her boyfriend Richard Carter. The pair had only been together for about six months when she was hit. “Overall I was in hospital for four months and he only missed one day the whole time. Such an amazing support. I’m really lucky.”

A year and a half has passed since her accident. It can be frustrating not being able to go for a run like she used to, but instead, Naomi swims. She’s also back at the gym, training with others. She’s planning on taking part in an Ironman in a group at the end of the year, where she’ll complete the swimming part of the race. In April, she and Richard will also get married.

Acceptance and confidence have come with time, as well as getting used to people glancing at her leg. “I still feel like we’ve got a long way ahead of us, but I definitely feel way more myself and that we’re definitely getting there now.”

Lastly, her message to those getting behind the wheel: “Everyone gets distracted in a car but cars are super dangerous and just think that you changing a radio station or looking at your phone might result in you ruining someone’s life or killing someone.

“People are so used to driving cars these days that they forget that they’re considered like a weapon really. And for me – I mean, my whole life was changed that night just because of one moment of inattention.”

FROM SAD TO SUPERSTAR IN SPOTLIGHT

At just 11 years old, Kate Olver​ is bright, bubbly, cheeky and speaks her mind.

At the mention of dance, her face lights up. Dancing is her passion – whether it’s dancing around the house, spinning in a tutu or dancing to the latest hip hop tracks.

Kate first began ballet in Wellington after her friend started taking lessons. Her mum, Karen, says she wasn’t sure about ballet at first because Kate couldn’t point her toes – Kate has a below the knee amputation on her right leg.

When Karen was pregnant she had amniotic band syndrome, which can occur when there’s a rupture in the inner lining of the womb. “It causes cobweb-like strands to float around where the baby is and [their] extremities can get caught in those bands.”

For Kate, it meant her lower right leg was amputated in utero. She also lost two fingers on her left hand. A band had also tied into a knot around her fingers on her right hand. When she was 18 months old, she had surgery to separate her fingers.

Kate’s parents encourage her to give things a go. “We’ve always said right from when she was little that her amputation might be a reason that she can’t do some things but it should never be a reason for her not to try, and we’ve sort of lived by that really. We’ve never said ‘oh no, you won’t be able to do that’. We let her try as every other kid has to.”

So when Kate asked about ballet, Karen thought ‘oh why not, go have some fun’. “It was probably the best move we ever made because it really is her passion now and it’s led to so many opportunities for her.”

After doing two years of ballet, Kate set her sights on hip hop and has never looked back. She’s in a competitive hip hop group in Wellington called ‘Sassy’, which her mum says is very apt “as that’s probably her personality to a tee”.

When she was younger Kate says she felt like she didn’t belong. “I just felt like nobody wanted to be my friend, nobody wanted to talk to me. I was really sad about that.”

Through dance and with age, her confidence increased and she made some great friends. “I think as I got older I feel like I got more confident and realised that it is okay to be different.”

Last year, Kate took part in a Kids Get Active day, organised by the artificial limb service and Parafed.  There, she got to race in her blade against other children with amputations. While running, she looked behind her and for the first time in her life, she realised she was coming first in a race.

“It made me feel much better about myself being around other people like me because at my school there’s no-one like me. I’m just the only one with one leg.”

Nowadays, Kate says she’s much more confident about her body and her abilities and thinks “it’s kinda cool to have one leg”.  

In 2018, she won a junior dance scholarship which pays for all her dance class fees. She’s also been in the local newspaper before and also was a dancer involved in Air New Zealand’s rap safety ad.

“I think it’s sort of amazing that I’ve been able to do all that sort of stuff because other kids don’t get that opportunity.”

She’s only 11, but Kate’s sights are now set for a future in dance. “It just really makes me happy to be able to dance. When I’m sad or if I feel lonely then I just dance or if I’m really happy I’ll dance – It just makes me really happy. It’s my happy place.”

Karen says that although Kate can doubt her own abilities at times, “most people would not know that she had an amputation”.

“We’re really proud of her … when you see her up on stage and you see her doing those things, you get that little lump in your throat and feel very, very proud.”

Whether it’s something physical or invisible, everyone has something they struggle with at some point, Karen says.

“Having a difference or an amputation like Kate has doesn’t limit you in any way. You’re certainly as competent as every other person and do the things you love to do. Don’t hold back.”

LIVING LIFE TO THE ABSOLUTE FULL

Nadya Vessey​ loves to swim, to keep active, to travel, and laugh. Simply put, she loves living life. Nadya is also a double amputee.

“I was born with deformed feet, of which we don’t know the cause of,” she says.

Nadya is in her late 60s and is based in Auckland. She became an amputee at the age of seven, with a single below the knee amputation. As a child she wasn’t worried about having one leg. She ran around on her wooden prosthetic, which she says was a heavy, cumbersome thing, and spent a lot of her time swimming.

But as a teenager, she became “terribly self conscious”.

“What had happened was that my lower legs didn’t grow properly so my body was sort of out of proportion and I became acutely aware that I was different.”

So at 16, Nadya made the choice to have her second leg amputated. The surgery put her body into proportion, added four inches to her height and boosted her self-confidence.

“My whole body image changed and I was much more confident and I became a new person really. It was good.”

As she got older, travelling the world was always at the forefront of her mind. As fate would have it, she got a teaching job on a small island just North of Japan. So with a husband in tow, she took a chance and jumped on a plane. She returned without a husband, but with a new sense of adventure.

Since then, Nadya has lived an action-packed life. She’s taught English in Kyrgyzstan and lived in China. She’s travelled on her own to Machu Picchu in South America, and also travelled parts of India. A few years back she went to Lebanon and worked in a Syrian refugee camp. “I like living, it’s good,” she says simply. 

“I never thought I could travel alone. I just couldn’t see myself doing that and then when my husband ran off, I had to travel alone and I discovered that I really loved it. So after that I was quite fearless really about where I went and what I did.” 

Over the years, she’s gone from having a heavy wooden prosthetic, to having two fairly light prosthetic legs that she can slip on and off at the click of a button. Weta Workshop also made her a mermaid tail to be used when swimming. “There is hope. Technology just gets better and better. We don’t know how well off we are until we’ve lost something really.”

Life as an amputee is no big deal “because it’s my normal”, she says. “It’s not the end of the world, it really isn’t. Amputees get such a lot more publicity now with runners and dancers. It’s not such a taboo thing as it was in the past.”

Nadya’s message to other amputees is that self-acceptance is key. It’s also important to get used to your prosthetic and in your mind, see yourself as whole again. “Your attitude about yourself will affect the attitude of others.”

“The most important thing is people accepting you but then, I guess I think that also goes with you accepting yourself because you are different. When you’re young, you don’t want to be different. But when you’re older I tell you what, you do because people remember you. It’s great to be different.”

Stuff