Everything to Live For: The Inspirational Story of Turia Pitt (11 page)

Genji and Angela met them at the airport. Michael’s flight arrived shortly after and he went straight to comfort the obviously distressed Célestine. ‘Don’t worry; the doctors are looking after her.’

He switched on his mobile and saw he had an SMS from Royal Darwin Hospital; he called and found himself speaking with an intensive care consultant at the hospital’s National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre (NCCTRC), who told him Turia had been transferred there. Her condition had become too unstable for the long flight from Kununurra to Perth. She was now stable and had been intubated to help her breathe; they were taking her to surgery for debridement; that is, to surgically remove some of the burnt skin.

Michael asked if Turia would lose her hands. The doctor was non-committal; it wasn’t a yes and it wasn’t a no. Michael found some comfort from this although he was left in no doubt that Turia’s situation was serious.

They all hastily rebooked to go to Darwin but as they were about to board their flight Michael received another call from the hospital advising him they were planning to evacuate Turia to the Intensive Care Unit of the Burns Unit at Sydney’s Concord Hospital; Turia would probably remain in Darwin for an hour or two after they arrived and it was up to him if he still wanted to come to Darwin. The Care Flight was coming from Sydney to get her and the evacuation crew were being prepared; once the Care Flight was in Darwin, and providing Turia remained stable, she would be flown to Sydney.

The decision was quickly made; everyone was going to Darwin. They wanted to be there in case the worst happened – that she might not make it. So a couple of hours later, Michael was on the plane back to Darwin, this time accompanied by his father, Célestine, Genji and Angela. British-born Angela, new in this family, suddenly found herself in the middle of a family crisis. She hated flying but she sat quietly, supportively holding Genji’s hand.

No one had any idea why the decision had been made to transfer Turia to Sydney instead of Perth. Only later they found out that there are few specialist burns units in Australia; when multiple burns cases are involved simultaneously, the receiving hospital will, where possible, distribute patients between the units to maximise individual care. Kate, who was also transferred to Royal Darwin Hospital, was medivaced to the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne and Michael and Martin were transferred to Royal Perth Hospital.

At 6.30 am on Saturday morning, 3 September, Michael Pitt received an SMS on his laptop. He and his wife, Karen, had just arrived back from their sailing holiday around the Greek Islands and were staying with Karen’s parents in Sydney; Michael’s mobile wasn’t working. The message was from Genji:

‘Turia is in hospital in Darwin in critical condition. She has burns to 60% of her body.’

Michael didn’t believe it; this must be one of Genji’s old Army mates playing a sick joke. Then he knew it couldn’t possibly be a joke – no one would be sick enough to joke like that. Michael borrowed Karen’s mobile and rang Genji, who was about to board the flight to Darwin. Michael heard the distress in Genji’s voice.

‘Dad she’s really bad. They don’t know if she’s going to make it. Are you coming up?’

‘I’m on the next flight out.’ He immediately bought a ticket online and Karen drove him to the airport.

He bought a new mobile phone at the airport and in a state of shock, blabbered on to the young salesman, hardly knowing what he was saying. Michael didn’t know if his daughter was dead or alive. He inserted the SIM chip into his new phone and rang Darwin Hospital. He was put through to the NCCTRC.

A member of the trauma team outlined what had happened – the race, the fire, the rescue, the emergency flight to Darwin. She was in an induced coma. They had pumped her body full of fluids. The hospital in Kununurra had done escharotomies on her arms and legs to release the tight burnt skin and help circulation. Later in the day they planned to take her back to theatre to extend her escharotomies to help improve blood flow to her extremities, which had been further compromised due to the intravenous flooding of fluids.

‘I can’t tell you if she will live or die but it is very serious,’ he was told.

As Michael Pitt sat through the four-hour flight to Darwin, all he could think was: ‘Am I going to see my daughter; or am I going to pick up her body?’ They were confronting thoughts.

The National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre at Royal Darwin Hospital has extensive experience in dealing with serious burns. It was set up by the Federal Government in 2005 in the aftermath of the 2002 Bali bombings, when Darwin Hospital became the receiving hospital for the many burns cases. It also received burns victims from the 2005 Bali bombing and treated those from the refugee boat explosion on Ashmore Reef off the Northern Territory in 2007.

Dr Gabriele Weidmann, the intensive-care consultant at the centre, had just started her shift on the morning of 3 September when she was briefed about Turia and Kate. It was a weekend of particular mayhem in intensive care, there were many very sick patients, but everyone was talking about Turia and Kate – what had happened and the difficult evacuation from the Kimberley. Dr Weidmann, a German critical-care specialist with a wide experience in horrific injuries, was told that Turia had sixty to seventy per cent full-thickness burns. Turia and Kate were currently in theatre undergoing debridement.

Dr Weidmann sprang into action; there were calls to be made – families to keep informed and arrangements for transfers. She had to find the Director of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Mr Shiby Ninin, who was attending a conference, fortunately nearby. So busy were they that she paged an off-duty colleague, general surgeon, Dr Steven Hudson, to come in and help out for a few hours but the page went unanswered.

Later in the morning Michael, Gary, Genji, Angela and Célestine arrived at Darwin Airport, where Gary rented a Tarago van, and they made their way to the hospital. On arrival they were escorted to the family room in the Trauma Response Centre.

It was here they met Gabby Weidmann and Belinda Nolan, Turia’s bedside nurse. The two medical professionals instantly recognised strong family support behind the anxiety. Dr Weidmann pulled no punches, telling them the outlook was grim, that Turia could die at any minute, and she gave them the reasons why. Célestine broke down. Before this they had dealt with the information through phone conversations, which somehow had made it more remote. Now it was real.

The family wanted to know how she looked. Célestine showed Belinda the photo of Turia in her graduation gown and cap and Belinda knew that was not the Turia they would see lying in ICU. She put her arm around Célestine as she explained Turia was very swollen, especially her face, and looked a bit like the Michelin Man; she was deeply sedated, had a breathing tube in and was attached to a ventilator. Belinda told them it would look very scary as there was a lot going on around Turia and that most of her body was covered in dressings.

The swelling, it was explained, resulted from the body’s initial reaction to a burns injury of this magnitude; it immediately starts releasing fluid into the damaged tissue. The fluid is drawn from the circulatory system, which contains the red blood cells, and from the fluid contained in the muscles. This causes profound changes in the body; one of them is oedema – where the body swells up and the blood inside the blood vessels becomes very thick. This is what had happened to Turia while she waited to be rescued and what made it impossible to get an IV drip into her.

The initial treatment was to flood her body with fluid to replace the fluid lost from her organs and keep her bloodstream working. In Turia’s case, the situation was exacerbated because she was already dehydrated at the time she was burnt.

Dr Weidmann made them all coffee, apologising for the quality – hospital blend after all – and asking who took milk, sugar. Célestine thought, ‘This can’t be right, she’s the doctor’, and offered to take over the coffee-making. Gabby Weidmann waved her off. It was her job to give these people the bad news and she fully understood the shock they were all in; making coffee was the least she could do besides offering comfort.

Next she explained what the escharatomies were for; Turia would need these before her transfer to Sydney. However, she would only be allowed to fly if her blood pressure was stable. Dr Weidmann assured them that Turia would be in good hands; the procedure would be performed by the best surgeons available – this was a hospital with highly experienced burns staff.

‘Don’t worry about the anaesthetist either – he’s my husband,’ she said, adding. ‘He’s also Swiss and very precise.’

Michael tried to take in what he was being told. He looked at Dr Weidmann a look that seemed to say: ‘Is she really saying what I think she is saying?’

He had never heard Belinda’s use of the term ‘Michelin Man’ before and didn’t know what it meant, nevertheless he decided he wouldn’t see Turia anyway; if she died, he wanted to remember her as the pretty, smiling Turia in trendy gear, long dark hair flowing as she ran to board the bus in Bomaderry. Not lying in hospital with tubes everywhere, unconscious, unresponsive and unrecognisably puffed up.

He recommended that Célestine not see Turia either. Célestine did choose not to see her, but for reasons that were different from Michael’s. She did not want to make this the last time she saw her precious daughter. She was determined that Turia would live. Genji also chose not to see her; although a toughened military man, he could not bring himself to see his pretty, vibrant sister like that. And Angela hardly knew her young sister-in-law.

But Gary said he would like to see her. He came out after about five minutes and Michael, waiting outside with Célestine, was alarmed at how solemn his father looked. Gary gave Célestine a big hug and Célestine, sensing he must have seen something bad, returned to the family room. After Célestine was out of earshot, Michael asked Gary how she really was.

‘I don’t think she’s going to make it,’ Gary told him with tears in his eyes.

This was too much for Michael; he found a quiet spot well away from everyone else and broke down.
She’s dead
, he told himself, still not quite believing it.
How did this happen?
He thought of all the happy times they had shared. How perfect things had been for them.

On the other hand, he reminded himself that his father hadn’t been in many hospital situations so maybe he was over-reacting, whereas Michael had seen dead and dying people when he was a police officer. So it might not be as bad as Gary imagined. Michael hung on to that hope.

Later they all headed back to the airport to pick up Michael Pitt. ‘Hello, the mother of my children,’ he said embracing Célestine. They sat together tearfully in the back of the Tarago holding hands tightly for mutual support as they returned to the hospital to be with their daughter.

At the hospital Michael was introduced to Dr Weidmann, who told him what the others already knew and the prognosis. It was also explained that if he wanted to see his daughter, she was so full of fluid she might be unrecognisable.

Michael wanted to see her regardless and went straight into intensive care, where he looked down at his little girl. Her body was bloated – her face had swollen to twice its normal size, but Michael was surprised; he expected to see a black burnt face; instead she just looked round and pink.

Back in the family room, Michael could see how seriously his son was traumatised. He and Turia were close in age and close as siblings, but Genji had always been Mr Action Man, catching the big waves, taking the risks, joining the Army, becoming a Navy diver.

‘How could this happen, Dad? I always thought it would be me that’d end up in hospital from doing something dangerous. Not Turia; she was always so smart; so careful.’

Michael had no answer. Bad things can happen to good people. He could not say why one person was chosen and not another.

Steven Hudson, a New Zealander who was Darwin Hospital’s Rural and Trauma Fellow in 2011, was off-duty on the day Turia and Kate were admitted. He came home from the gym early on 3 September to find his pager had gone off, which he thought was odd because he was not on call. He phoned and was told about a couple of patients with severe burns and how Dr Weidmann had been looking for extra people to help; but things were now under control and he wasn’t needed. Nevertheless, as Dr Hudson lived near the hospital, he thought he’d go in and see what was happening.

Mr Ninin had his hands full with two such badly burnt patients and was pleased when the young Kiwi surgeon turned up. Performing escharotomies is time-consuming at the best of times: patients have to first be positioned and cleaned with antiseptic fluid. In this case, applying the drapes was in itself a major task, as it involved all four limbs on both patients. After extending the escharotomies, dressings had to be applied and each limb bandaged. With Dr Hudson assisting, two limbs could be done simultaneously, each surgeon working with a scrub nurse and Mr Ninin overseeing Dr Hudson.

The surgeons were worried that the hands and feet of the two young women may have to be amputated later because the blood supply to them had been severely compromised due to the length of time before being treated. The surgery took several hours and it was late evening before the surgical team emerged.

Dr Weidmann informed the waiting group that the surgery had gone well: the extended escharotomies on Turia’s arms had helped release the claw-like contractions of her hands, and her blood pressure remained stable so Care Flight was organising her transfer to Sydney.

Michael Hoskin, detecting slightly more optimism in the doctor’s voice, asked if Turia would live. Gabby Weidmann looked at this nice-looking young man desperately hoping for better news. She told him that with medical advances, people in Turia’s situation did live these days; she would most probably live but it would be a rocky road to recovery, with skin grafting, scarring, multiple operations and ongoing health issues, her rehabilitation would be extensive and long.

‘How long – weeks, months?’ he asked.