Devastated parents call for more care

The parents of a 10-year-old girl who was struck and critically injured by a car at a Dunedin pedestrian crossing just days before Christmas have called for more care on crossings, from both drivers and pedestrians.

Shania Hutton was struck by a car in Riselaw Rd, Calton Hill, on December 22, only metres from her home while on her way to buy lollies at the local shop.

Her parents, Jane and Andrew Hutton, said she was nearly off the crossing when she was hit.

Recalling the day of the incident, Mrs Hutton said she and her husband were at work and Shania and her brother Samuel (12) were being looked after by their grandmother.

"A family friend called me at work and said, 'Shania's been hit by a car'," Mrs Hutton said.

"At the time, it didn't sound too serious. I called Andrew and then I went home to see her. I expected to find her sitting there talking. I thought she might have had a broken arm or leg.

"But she was lying on the grass, sprawled out with tubes down her throat and three ambulance officers working with her.

"It felt like someone just ripped my insides out. An ambulance officer told me she was very sick and she was possibly going to die.

"I'll never forget that moment - just thinking about it now, I still feel physically sick."

Shania had received a major head injury and in the hours following her heart stopped twice, being restarted by Dunedin Hospital doctors.

She also had three operations, one to remove two bone flaps from her skull to allow her brain to swell without causing too much damage, and two to repair a broken femur.

She was also put on life support after she inhaled stomach bile, severely damaging her lungs.

For the first week and a-half after the accident, Shania was in an induced coma.

Mrs Hutton said the family would now have to wait up to two years before the full extent of the damage to Shania's brain was known.

"There have been signs of improvement since she was woken from the coma.

"When she first woke up, her eyes just rolled back in her head and stayed that way. But now, she squeezes our hands, she can poke her tongue out and she grins if something is really funny.

"But she can't talk because she has a trachy [tracheotomy] in her neck to help her breathe."

Shania is in the children's ward at Dunedin Hospital while decisions are made about whether she will receive rehabilitation at the Isis Unit in Wakari or at Starship Hospital in Auckland.

"She will need huge rehabilitation. It could take years - we don't know.

"Our whole world has been turned upside down, but we're keeping our chins up and looking at the positives," Mrs Hutton said.

The Huttons thanked Dunedin Hospital staff, ambulance officers, their work colleagues, Shania's school, neighbours, friends and the strangers who had offered them support and kind wishes during the past month.

Mrs Hutton said if there was a lesson to be learnt from their ordeal, it was more care needed to be taken at pedestrian crossings.

"When you're on a crossing, you have to be sure there's nothing coming, or that the traffic has seen you and it's stopping."

No charges have been laid and police investigations are continuing.

- john.lewis@odt.co.nz