Don’t feel sorry for yourself…get up!

At the age of eighteen, on the way to a party, after a Saturday shift, I got into a workmates car…there was no warrant of fitness/pink slip or any adequate brakes, or wind wipers. The car was a 1949 Ford Popular that was customised. No seat belts either.

Anyway the year is 1974 June 6th at about 4 pm, going through a give way sign at a T intersection in the rain (remember no window wipers) and along comes this Austin A40 at 60 Kilometres an hour straight into my side of the car. I am pushed out through the windscreen as the car rolls end over end 3 times and sides ways at the same time.

The ambulance officers thought I was dead at the scene..I cannot remember anything of the accident but I do remember an officer saying he too far gone, go work on the other one.

I woke up in hospital on a glass slab getting X-rayed, it took 5 orderlies to hold me down, cause I thought someone had bottled me from behind. I couldn’t see as my whole face was bruised black and my eyes were shut tight.

My brother was allowed in to see me and promptly vomited over the floor, so shocked at my appearance. The top of my head had been peeled back over my skull, both my ears were hanging on thin threads of flesh. I had a piece of glass stuck in my neck just below my chin. The knuckles on my left hand had been skinned on the road.

The doctors said afterwards that I must have had the thickest skull in Auckland as I did not have any fractures or splinters in the brain. The leather jacket I was wearing had also saved me from more extensions injury..of which I am grateful.

They sewed me up…stopped counting the stitches at 130 and sent me to ICU where I was in coma for 3-4 days, all I can remember is when they squeezed the blood transfusion bags to unblock the clots…my goodness I have never felt such pain in my life oh and when they stuck the morphine (fortral) in my leg every 2-3 hours…ouch!

When I woke up I was dizzy, dazed and confused (Isn’t that a song?). I remember at 2pm in the morning a couple of days after I woke up, havinf such a headache as they had stopped the morphoine, so I clutched the walls for support and made my way to the nurses station. The senior nurse was locking up the drugs cabinet, took one look at me a screamed her head off…afterwards whe said I looked like Frankenstein and just wasn’t expecting anyone to creep up on her.

OK, OK I am gettiing to the point of this blog…About a week afterwaking up I was feeling really very depressed and sulky and moody…a doctor one of the older ones comes to my bed ( I am now in the ward) tells me to grab the flowers at the end of the bed and come with him. He takes me toa private room near ICU and tells me to take a look. I see a small, woman, lying in the bed and she has no face left, she had been in an accident a couple of days after mine.

The Doctor then proceeds to tell me “Don’t feel sorry for yourself, there is always someone worse off than you”, then he turns and walks away.

I thought I was in a bad place until I saw that poor young woman (she died a day later). I at least had life… something to go on with, something to build on.

Today 35 years later I am married to a beautiful Fijian woman named Ani, have 6 kids between us..I have had to cope with effects of the accident but I am still here and enjoying life. We have lived in New Zealand, Fiji and now Australia.

We are going through a recession that has not hit the world in this way for 60 years and there will be a lot of heartache and sorrow. Much soul searching and sadness…many will think that suicide is the only way out.

Just BELIEVE ME when I tell you this from my heart…THERE IS ALWAYS SOMEONE WORSE OFF THAN YOU! Instead of accepting the recession let’s fight together to end it.. how can I do that you ask…just by getting up and carrying on as best you as you can… ask for support from others and when you see those around you not coping, offer to help them too.

Shalom brothers and sisters.

David

By the way, YES I am a Follower of Yah’shua I started a relationship with Yah’shua/Jesus in 1977 and He has never let me down!

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