Joan Read wishes she had always worn her helmet

Press, 31 May 1986, Page 19

Joan Read wishes she had always worn her helmet

By

NIGEL MALTHUS:

with the help of

Denis Dwyer, the Canterbury Hospital Board information officer.

Joan Read is one cyclist who will never again ride without a helmet.

She discovered the hard way something few people fully appreciate: head injuries can be shockingly disabling, and take a Very long time to heal. It was 14 months ago, Sunday, March 31, last year: Joan Read was cycling along Woodham Road when a car driven by a drunken driver (it was 10 a.m.) crossed the centreline and Smashed her and the cycle through a wire-netting fence. Ironically, she was on the way to a meeting of the Canterbury Recreational Cycling Club, of which she was the secretary. It was also her birthday.

Three of her front teeth and both wrists were broken; her right leg was broken in three places; and worst of all, she was heavily concussed. For a week she wavered in and out of consciousness in the intensive care unit of Christchurch Hospital. Fourteen months later, her physical injuries are largely healed but the neurological effects persist. Her balance is impaired, and her left-side peripheral vision remains hazy. She has bought a new cycle, but our picture is posed: she is still unable to ride it, or drive her car. She will have to wait until given the go-ahead by the hospital’s occupational therapy department, and there is no way of knowing how long it will take.

“I wish I had been wearing a helmet,” she says, while admitting there is no way of knowing how much it would have helped. “But I want it made clear how dangerous it is. I see cyclists without helmets now and I think ‘they don’t know what they're letting themselves in for.’ "I did not even own a helmet. But most of my friends have now bought them.” As is common with head injuries, Joan Read has trouble with her memory. She is still unable to remember the accident, nor much of the previous six months. She had difficulty remembering, during the initial weeks of recovery, who had

visited her the day before, and occasionally what she had eaten at her last meal.

Speech therapy began four weeks after the accident, when she had just begun to speak again. As she improved, she remained unaware that she was speaking incessantly, and constantly changing the topic of her conversation.

She needed help in following questions, extending her concentration span, and in appreciating subtleties of language such as humorous comments.. Occupational therapy began six weeks after the accident, when she was still in hospital. As she tired very easily, treatment sessions were initially limited to 20 minutes. In the early stages, she needed help with showering and dressing. Treatment included games and puzzles to exercise her skills of memory, concentration, and problem solving. Joan was supported by her parents, who came up from Timaru on the day of the crash, and lived with her for a time after she was finally discharged from hospital, 2>/ 2 months later. "It was like being back in childhood," says Miss Read, now aged 33. “I was so used to being independent and alone.” She is still receiving treatment, including physiotherapy. That concentrated at first on the left side of her body, which was especially weakened by the blow to the right side of the head (the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body). A big problem now is the right leg, which has ended up nearly four centimetres shorter because of the fractures. She might never again be able to enjoy as before her sporting interests which included skating, badminton, and running. She is considering having special skates made, with the right boot built up. Another pos-

sibility is to have the left leg surgically shortened, though that would be a major operation that would delay her ultimate recovery.

Joan Read returned to work, as assistant to the paymaster at Lincoln College, on April 2— just over a year after the accident. Going back to work was a major triumph, although she can manage only to work part-time at this stage. “I was very lucky,” she says. “My boss has been very careful. He does not want to stress me. He understands.

“I go along to the head injuries support group, where other people discuss the fact that they have had problems. Some go back to work too early."

The cost of the accident, even in simple monetary terms, is virtually incalculable. Repairing her broken teeth, alone, cost $2500, largely met by accident compensation payments. By comparison, the costs to the drunken driver involved have been minimal: a $750 fine and loss of licence for two years. That, Joan Read says, is “unfair.” She would back any proposal that would see such people forced to contribute something to the costs. The driver will be back behind the wheel by October next year; Miss Read, possibly, will not.

She has been told that full recovery may take three to four years. She has lost her senses of smell and taste, and they may never return; nor, perhaps, her peripheral vision.

In the meantime, she takes life one day at a time, with a cheerfulness that is remarkable considering the frustrations which continue to face her.

Proudly, she tells of buying a new watch a few days ago, to replace the one broken in the crash ... “All these little achievements."