Raising money for an adapted car for Elizabeth

Introduction 

My name is Lily and following a terrible accident involving a speed boat, my sister Rosie and friend Elizabeth have suffered life-changing injuries. As a result I am raising 15,000€ to fund the purchase of a wheelchair adapted car for Elizabeth and any further funds raised will help the girls finance any rehabilitation or equipment they would benefit from. Rosie had stopped her physio and acupuncture because it was getting too expensive. Elizabeth needs to buy a new, much lighter, wheelchair which costs no less than 7k€! Please read the full story below.

It's been over 3 years since the accident, and this is my first time writing about what happened in my own words. It's extremely emotional and difficult to accept but I want you as readers to get a real sense of what happened that day.

The Accident

On the 31st December 2019, my sisters Charlotte and Rosie, Rosie’s boyfriend Ed, our friend Elizabeth and I were enjoying a sunny day in Oman before the NYE festivities. We had taken a 2-man bright yellow kayak, pulling a float, to the neighbouring bay which is a deserted beach only accessible by water. Charlotte and I were on the float on the way out whilst Rosie and Elizabeth paddled the kayak. On the way back we switched places and added Ed onto the float as he preferred not to swim back.

We started well, we stayed close to the rocks but not too close that we might crash into them. As we were on the home stretch, we noticed a boat coming straight at us at an incredibly fast speed. Due to the speed at which the double-engined speed boat was moving, the nose of the boat was tilted upwards which meant the driver could not see us below in the water. Nobody on the boat was on the lookout. I thought it was a joke until I realised, they were going to hit us. Time suddenly seemed to go at a snail’s pace, but we didn’t have enough time to move out of the way or do anything that could stop the course of what was about to happen. We all just shouted with all our strength and I flailed my paddle in the air, in the hope that the driver of the boat would hear us before he hit.

Charlotte and I didn’t have enough time to jump out of the kayak, so we were hit straight on the nose of the kayak. We were incredibly fortunate because the shell of the kayak was made of hard plastic which bounced off the bottom of the speed boat and tilted our kayak upside down with us still in it. This meant that the speed boat went straight over the bottom of the kayak which protected us from being hurt.

After we swam back up for air, we did a quick head count. Only four of us had resurfaced! Rosie was still missing somewhere in the sea. Elizabeth was in a bad way but she was able to keep herself afloat and breathe. She told us to deal with Rosie first. When Ed pulled Rosie out of the water she was completely limp with blood pouring out of her head. I pushed her hair back to see her face completely expressionless. I instantly thought she was dead. I screamed for the boat to come back and help us, which it did. Ed and I pushed Rosie’s dead weight up onto the boat with all our force. I had to lift her limp arms to ask the people on the boat to help us pull her up. As we were doing this Rosie was making a strange gargling sound which I thought was her final breath leaving her body. I can’t quite explain the feeling of panic and fear that gripped me. I just needed to try and save us all from this nightmare, so I stayed composed and kept moving as fast as possible. Once Rosie was up on the boat that had hit us, Ed jumped on with her and the boat headed back to the main beach.

Thinking I had dealt with the worst part I swam as fast as I could to Elizabeth who had been patiently waiting to be rescued without saying a word. The second I got to her I tried to lie her with her back on my tummy whilst I swam backwards (this is a water rescue position I know). Elizabeth kept saying “Don’t touch my back, I think it’s split open” and “I can’t feel my legs”. At this point, I realised Elizabeth was in a much worse position than I had originally anticipated. Mentally she was completely awake and aware but physically everything was collapsing. Another fishing boat appeared from the beach – presumably, they had seen what had happened and came to our rescue. Charlotte and I had to try and lift Elizabeth onto the boat which again was extremely challenging because all these boats had such high sides and no easy way of getting on. After a couple of attempts, we finally managed to get the top half of her body on. This was enough for me to get up on the boat and hold Elizabeth’s legs up, out of the water. This is when I noticed a huge slice in her heel which was bleeding profusely. She just said she couldn’t feel it – I was so worried about her having lost the ability to use her legs. Her back, on the other hand, was not sliced open but instead, there was an evident bruised horizontal line where the boat had hit with force across her spine.

Once we arrived back at the beach, I shouted for some tourists to call an ambulance immediately. I also asked them for a towel so I could wrap Elizabeth’s heel, to stop the bleeding. Charlotte ran to the house we were staying at on the beach to get help from my parents and my husband.

Elizabeth started to say she couldn’t breathe, I gently tried to turn her from her front onto her side to help her breathe. Every manoeuvre was so difficult because there was no space on the fishing boat. She was talking calmly and normally but was looking very sleepy.

When Dad arrived, I asked him to run to the other end of the beach to see if Rosie was alive.

When Richard arrived, I asked him to get me some juice for Elizabeth because I wanted to give her sugar so she wouldn’t go to sleep. I was so worried that if I let her sleep she wouldn’t wake up.

Daddy came back to say that Rosie was alive and talking. I couldn’t believe it at first. All she was saying was “aow aow aow aow aow aow” but she was ALIVE! I then worried she might have some brain damage because it seemed she had been hit straight on the head.

I stayed with Elizabeth the entire time. I wanted to make sure she stayed alive because the longer we waited for the ambulance, the more worried I was about her condition. Even though she never at any point acted strange, lost consciousness, or lost her cool. She was incredibly brave.

When the ambulance arrived, at last, Elizabeth was the first to be put on. She was in extreme pain as they tried to move her onto the stretcher. Once in, she had to wait for Rosie to be taken in too.

When the ambulance left, we followed behind. I was still in my swimming costume that I covered in my mother’s beach dress. This was the first lucid moment I had since the boat hit us. I was consumed with worry for Rosie and Elizabeth. I even prayed. I prayed that the girls would live.

Hospital

We all arrived at the Omani hospital barely covered. Elizabeth and Rosie were both being looked after with the utmost care and urgency. Both girls were in extreme amounts of pain. Elizabeth kept being moved for various X-rays, MRI’s and scans, the transitions causing her pain she could no longer bear. The doctors then urgently punctured tubes into her lungs through her torso to drain her lungs so she could breathe. Her screaming with pain was so frightening and upsetting to hear.

Rosie was calmer by this point, completely unable to move as she was gripped with immense pain. Charlotte and I had to cut her out of her swimming costume to help the nurses.

Elizabeth’s scan of her spine had come back, all I can remember is seeing a spine in two parts, completely detached. The doctor was telling us that she needed operating on urgently. As the doctor was explaining the procedure of the operation, he also told us about the risks. He said that to operate on Elizabeth’s spine, he would need to turn her around onto her stomach, the issue with this is that there had been some damage to her aorta and moving her might cause further damage which would cause internal bleeding. The problem, if this happened, is that they could do nothing to save her as they didn’t have the facilities in that hospital to operate on her aorta and stop her bleeding to death.

When I asked if we couldn’t wait for the relevant doctors to arrive for this eventuality, he said that they didn’t have the time to wait as Elizabeth might die in the meantime if not operated on immediately. None of Elizabeth’s family was with us to make these difficult decisions. Richard (my husband) called Sarah (Elizabeth’s sister) to tell her what had happened and what was going to happen next. Elizabeth, who was still completely mentally aware, asked me to grab a piece of paper and a pen and write down her will for her. I couldn’t argue with her as this was her wish.

At midnight on the 1st January 2020, Elizabeth went into theatre for a life saving operation on her spine, uncertain as to whether she would survive. At 3 am, she came out singing “I’m a survivor” and blowing kisses to Richard, me, and all the nurses and doctors whilst she was being taken up to ICU.

In the days that followed, we took shifts to be by Rosie and Elizabeth’s beds. They were on different wards and neither of them could leave their beds so all their needs had to be managed by those of us who weren’t hurt.

Living in the hospital for so long was quite traumatic, Rosie kept fainting and shaking which I thought were fits (but weren’t), and Elizabeth had alarms going off in her room the entire time – mainly due to the oxygen machine because her breathing was so restricted. We were giving the girls bed baths and washed their hair which was still full of seawater and blood a week after the accident. Watching them in so much pain, and not being able to do anything about it, was agonising. I dreaded anytime either of them had to be moved because they screamed with pain.

After 2 weeks of living in hospital, Rosie was starting to walk again. Before Rosie and I flew back to the UK, Elizabeth was moved to another hospital for continued care in Oman. She wasn’t able to return home to Paris for a month following the accident. When Elizabeth made it home at last, she lived in hospitals for the next 18 months.

The extent of their injuries was astronomical. Rosie had a broken scapular, broken ribs and a gash in the back of her head and has lasting nerve damage to her right-hand side – especially down her right arm.

It wasn’t until 3 weeks later when Rosie went for a check-up at a London hospital that we found out that she also had a broken neck. She was rushed to A&E for an immediate operation to remove a disk which had dislodged and was pressing against her spinal cord and pin her vertebrae back together to avoid significant further damage and the risk of becoming quadriplegic.

Elizabeth had been rendered paraplegic from the belly button down, she had a collapsed lung, the other lung had a haemorrhage, a fully dislocated spine, a twisted spinal cord, broken ribs and a lacerated heel.

Three years on

Following her emergency operation in London, Rosie has made a good and fast recovery although the damage to her nervous system down her right side has not fully repaired. She lives with disabilities mainly visible in her right hand which restrict her from doing simple tasks such as writing, typing, carrying weight, playing tennis, playing the piano, knitting, tying her hair up and so on… All the little things we take for granted she has had to learn a new way of doing. Rosie could still benefit from rehabilitation such as physio and acupuncture to improve her everyday life.

She is however able to live a normal life, she works full-time and can drive an automatic car. She has been incredibly strong, brave and selfless throughout the entire process and still is to this day. I am immensely proud of my sister who I will forever look up to for her resilience.

The damage to Elizabeth’s spinal cord has not allowed her to walk again. She has regained control of her hips but unfortunately nothing below.

Elizabeth is now living on her own in a wheelchair-friendly apartment in Paris. She is about to start work again part-time which she is excited about. She is very busy with her physio, walking in an exoskeleton and all the various appointments required to live in a wheelchair. She has just purchased an adapted car which she can get in and out of completely unaided. To say this has given her a new lease of life is an understatement. I have not seen Elizabeth this happy and excited about life since the accident in 2019. She is my hero.

Following the accident, my father started a court case in Oman against the driver of the boat for reckless driving. The case is only just coming to a close. Thanks to the ancient Sharia Law, the financial compensation for the girls was halved because the life of a women is valued at half that of a man’s according to this law. Simply put, the girls have had zero financial aid towards their disabilities because the compensation doesn’t even cover legal costs and that’s if the driver of the boat was able to pay anyway – he did not have insurance.

Because Elizabeth has lost the use of her legs, her basic cost of living is extremely expensive compared to before, and this is where I ask for your help and generosity.

Elizabeth has been able to buy an adapted car for 25.000€. This car has turned her life around. Before getting this car, Elizabeth was unable to get anywhere alone, every appointment and meeting required enormous amounts of pre-planning, organisation, and help from others. But now Elizabeth has a new sense of freedom and is able to look at life in a different light. She is now confident enough to start work again which was always restricted by her lack of mobility. She now can visit friends at the week-end and doesn’t need to spend hours organising transport for a meeting two blocks away.

She was able to put 10.000€ towards the cost of her new car but she has had to borrow a further 15.000€ to avoid losing the opportunity of having this car, her freedom, and a new lease of life.

I hope that together we can raise 15.000€ so that Elizabeth can repay her debt on this car. It would relieve her immensely of some of the financial burden of living in a wheelchair. This is life-changing for her and you can play a part in it.

Anything we manage to raise beyond the 15.000€ Elizabeth needs will be split between Elizabeth & Rosie, to help them finance any rehabilitation or equipment from which they could benefit.

Thank you so much for reading our story and I hope that you can help us raise money for the girls.

Lily