NILLUMBIK/ BANYULE WEEKLY ARTICLE — Project Walk Melbourne

JUST over two years ago, Rhiannon Tracey was getting ready to celebrate her 21st birthday when she was told she would never walk again.The Eltham vet nurse had just bought a car and had sent out invitations to her party when she flew to Bali for a holiday with her mother and best friend.‘‘It was our usual girls’ trip away,’’ she says now. ‘‘It was my best friend’s birthday the night that it happened.’’Tracey’s life changed that night when she dived into the resort swimming pool and broke her spine. ‘‘It was poorly lit and the signage was poor.’’The accident broke four of her vertebrae, and narrowly avoided severing her spinal cord. ‘‘I was paralysed from the neck down.’’

Tracey was rushed to Denpasar hospital, where she was scheduled for emergency surgery. Then Bali was hit by an earthquake.

Fearing the hospital had been hit by a bomb, the doctors and nurses evacuated the hospital, leaving Tracey, her mother and her friend alone inside. She waited a further nine hours for surgery to fuse together her shattered spine.

Despite having travel insurance, Tracey was in hospital for two weeks before she was transferred to Australia. By then, she had collapsed lungs and her condition was deteriorating.

‘‘By the time two Aussie nurses arrived, I was on my last breath,’’ she says.

After being flown back to Australia, she was placed in an induced coma and underwent two further surgeries, placing titanium rods in her spine. She was then put into to rehabilitation at the Royal Talbot.

Initially, Tracey was told she would never walk again, let alone drive a car.

When she left the Royal Talbot six months later, Tracey recalls: ‘‘I was in a very dark place.’’

Yet, her family refused to give up hope. Instead, they hired private physiotherapists to give Tracey intensive physical therapy on her unresponsive limbs. As the accident took place overseas, Tracey’s family has received no compensation for her injuries.

‘‘For uncompensated people with this injury, it is ridiculous. We have to fund-raise to live.’’

Her family raised funds to fly her to the US to Project Walk, an exercise-based recovery centre for people with spinal cord injuries started by a Californian personal trainer and his client, a quadraplegic.

At Project Walk, Tracey had her wheelchair taken off her during therapy. ‘‘You don’t see your wheelchair for three or four hours. Every piece of equipment you either put yourself in, or they pick you up and put you in it,’’ she says.

For Tracey, Project Walk not only helped her physical recovery, but vastly improved her self-esteem.

Two months later, she walked out using a walking frame.

Since then, Tracey has returned to the US twice. After three more months of physical therapy, she walked out unaided.

Now, the 23-year-old has paired up with a fellow spinal cord injury sufferer to bring Project Walk to Australia.

While she has been forced to give up her vet nurse career since the accident, she is now focused on raising $250,000 to build a Project Walk recovery centre in Melbourne.

‘‘We are well aware that not everyone will walk again, but it has been proven that with intense physical therapy, you can have some form of recovery,’’ she says.

With new research into activity-based recovery under way, Tracey hopes government funding will be forthcoming.

Tracey, who is still working to recover the use of her left side and spends much of her time in a wheelchair, was awarded this year’s Nillumbik Young Citizen of the Year on Australia Day for her efforts to raise awareness of spinal injuries.

In December, Tracey also received her licence. ‘‘I’m now driving,’’ she says.

Project Walk Melbourne will host a walk-a-thon and wheel-a-thon in April/May this year. For details or to donate, visit projectwalkmelbourne.org