I wasn’t sure whether to post this story at first. I went down to visit my family in Avalon for Mothers Day and Eden was telling me about his school excursion. I’m not sure whether we have these type of excursions here in the Northern Rivers but if we don’t I think we should. Eden is a human of a Human of Lismore. If excursions like this save one life it’s worth it.
WARNING – Graphic content. Some content of this story may be distressing. Discretion is advised.
Photo – Halee Smith
Eden – “I’m in Year 10 at Barrenjoey High and we went on an excursion to Royal North Shore Hospital. Every kid in Year 10 has to go. We arrived at school at 6.45am and got to the hospital about 8am. When we first arrived to Reception we were greeted by a lady who took us all upstairs to a room where she talked about drugs and alcohol. She showed us some pretty bad pictures of what happens in accidents. The images were so full on. People with legs split up the middle, people who have been impaled and they have to cut through the metal at the front and the back and take them to hospital with the metal still through their bodies so they don’t bleed to death. They showed us hands in half to the wrist and really bad head injuries.
We had to watch this real dash-cam footage of a crash with 3 girls and the driver was checking her phone. We saw their heads smashing into the windows and smashing through the back window. They had no seat belts on and they were texting as well. The footage shows them so smashed up but still alive and then a truck comes through and the dash cam is still going. Two girls died and the driver survived but she had the whole car squashing her legs and her face was almost gone.
The nurse told us about another girl in a car crash. She was so beautiful and she was driving from the shops and this guy called Ronnie was drunk and left a party at 2am. He tailgated her and smashed into her at the intersection. Her car exploded into flames and she couldn’t escape until the firetruck came. We saw before and after photos of her and it was so sad. She doesn’t have skin anymore and she has a hole in her face where her nose should be. No hair, eyebrows or lashes and no ears. She lived and it was so so sad. They said ‘We can’t show you under her clothes because it so horrific’.
After the drug and alcohol discussion they took us into the critical ward where there are coma patients with back and neck injuries. We saw people just after car accidents getting rushed through. They have 6,000 patients a year and with 365 days a year that is way too many.
These are just car accidents mainly from people drinking, drugged or texting. The saddest thing I saw was little kids in comas with all these tubes and wires attached. There were kids from just 3 years old in comas from car accidents. Everyone was crying. My whole year was crying.
We went into the drug section and there were people gliching out, having seizures and getting tied down. It was full on. We saw young people who are now paraplegic.
The saddest part was back to the drugs, where people come in highly intoxicated and really angry on drugs like meth. They get thrown into this room where there is just a bed and there’s soft material on the walls. They get locked in and the security cameras show them vomit, shit, piss, throw themselves into the walls, head butt the doors. It was such a hot, awful room.
The very saddest part of the excursion was, you know when someone dies in hospital from injuries you go into this room. They had a fake dummy which was a baby. The police have an awful job as the family is all around and the police have to lift that cloth and show that tiny face. This is the room where you say your last goodbyes to your son, daughter, dad, mum and we had to go in there. It was so bad.
It was the heaviest excursion but I learned so much from it. It really makes you realise not wearing a seat belt, drinking, drugs, speeding is so not worth it. It has changed me and made a difference to me. It was so hectic.
We had an interview with 2 guys now in wheel chairs. One was a paraplegic from an attempted suicide at 14. He jumped off a building. His story in short was he was a drug dealer at 13 and needed cash for his own habit which included cocaine, meth and weed. He had a knife pulled on him at 13. His dealer threatened him with a gun. Saw his dealer shot and he’s still only 13. This is Sydney. A year later he hated his life and wanted to die. He threw himself off the top of a building in Chatswood, didn’t die and now he’s a paraplegic. He’s now helping others. After this excursion I felt sick. It also doesn’t smell very nice in the coma ward to be honest.
As much as it was so hard core, these people and these images are stuck in my head.”