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A day and a half after flying home to Martinborough from an overseas trip, Rose started to feel unwell. As Rose explains, “I had a roaring temperature, so I was drinking lots of water. I didn’t feel like eating”. She knew what would make her feel better though – a nice cup of tea.

Rose had a perfected tea ritual that included two small teapots. She went to the kitchen and put the kettle on. When it boiled, she filled one of the small teapots.

But before she could fill the second one, Rose blacked out [a sudden loss of consciousness] – while still holding a kettle half full of boiling water.

A terrible accident

Rose came to. She recalls “I’d been blacked out for a while. I know this because the wet patches on my clothing (which was water from the kettle) were now cold”.

Because of the infection raging through her body causing chills, Rose’s immediate focus when she gained consciousness was to “get warmer. So, I put on more clothes and climbed into bed. I wasn’t in a lot of pain”.

After dozing for a while, Rose thought it best to ring someone for help and advice, so she called her daughter. Rose’s daughter recalls the alarm she felt when Rose called – “it was your voice”, she explains. Unable to get to Martinborough herself, Rose’s daughter rang a family friend who lived in nearby Greytown.

When the family friend arrived, she took one look at Rose and asked if she’d called an ambulance. When Rose said no, she took it upon herself to call 111 straightaway – because the friend saw burns on Rose’s body.

Rose had developed third- and fourth-degree burns when she passed out holding the kettle of boiling water. Third degree burns are also called full thickness burns as they go through the first layer of skin. Fourth degree burns go through both layers of skin and underlying tissue, as well as deeper tissue and possibly muscle and bone. Because of the damage to nerve endings, there’s typically no pain or feeling in the area. These types of burns need immediate emergency medical attention as they can be life-threatening.

Due to the loss of body fluids caused by the burns, Rose was in shock. This is a critical condition caused by Rose’s body experiencing a sudden reduction in the flow of blood, which meant not enough oxygen was getting to her brain and vital organs.

A race against time

A Wellington Free Ambulance emergency crew was urgently dispatched, and Rose remembers two paramedics attending to her. She explains:

“One paramedic inserted a cannula into my arm [an intravenous or IV line – a short, small plastic tube that sits in a vein, allowing medications to be inserted directly into a vein] and they asked me questions about what I’d done.”

Talking to Rose today, she thinks there are things she should have done – like have a cold shower and change her clothes.

But at the time, deep in shock, she simply didn’t register what she needed to do.

Due to the extent of Rose’s burns, her condition, and the urgency of hospital treatment needed, the paramedics knew the rescue helicopter was the best way to get her the hospital care she needed as quickly and comfortably as possible. It’s over an hour by road from Martinborough to Hutt Hospital, across the narrow and winding Remutaka Hill and time was of the essence.

When the helicopter landed and Rose’s care was passed to the flight paramedic on board, Rose recalls a paramedic reassuring her that “we’ve given you as much pain relief as we can, but the flight paramedic can give you the stronger stuff!”.

Next step: surgery

When she was admitted to Hutt Hospital, because the medical team hadn’t yet discovered what virus Rose was experiencing – and especially because she’d just come back from overseas – she was immediately put into isolation. There followed days of antiviral treatment for Rose’s influenza (flu).

Because of this, her burns surgery wouldn’t happen until six days later. Rose had third- and fourth-degree burns on her left forearm, torso and flanks. She laughs that “I didn’t even know I had a flank! I thought only horses had them”. (Flanks are the areas on the sides and back of the abdomen, between the lower ribs and hips.)

To give her the best chance of surviving her injuries, Rose needed skin grafts for her burns. Rose describes this as “one surgery needed to put Humpty Dumpty back together again!”.

Rose recalls a conversation with her surgeon before the surgery:

“I describe myself as a practical Kiwi woman. I had a wonderful British surgeon who was trying to tactfully tell me that not many 77-year-olds [Rose’s age at the time of surgery] survive this type of surgery. I laughed and told him ‘I haven’t got time to die yet!’”

Hours of surgery and 120 staples later, Rose proved her statement correct.

Recovery and restrictions

Rose ended up staying in Hutt Hospital for over a month as she recovered from surgery. She then spent two years in compression garments [tight-fitting bandages that help to reduce scarring] which needed to be remade and refitted every three months. Sometimes Rose wonders how she managed to do this for such a long amount of time, especially during the heat of two Wairarapa summers. She admits she “found it a challenge to stick to the rules, the garments were very restrictive”.

She continues to have deep tissue massages, kindly provided by a practitioner she met through the local hospice where she volunteered. Rose’s scars have healed well; she describes them as ‘flat scars’.

Reflecting on her Wellington Free Ambulance experience

Rose can still clearly remember the care of the Wellington Free Ambulance paramedics. She explains that “it wasn’t just the treatment they provided, it was the explanation of what they were doing. There were no recriminations or judgments, they told me not to beat myself up, I was in deep shock. That’s why I did what I did [put more clothes on and went to bed]. It was the holistic care the paramedics provided, the whole experience. I rate the paramedics at 110%.”

Rose goes onto explain that she lives in social housing and has done for 18 years. Her sole income is her benefit.

Yet when she got out of hospital, she made a hugely generous donation to Wellington Free Ambulance in recognition of the fact that, in Rose’s eyes, “they literally saved my life”.

She also continues to give back to Wellington Free Ambulance by donating on an ongoing, regular basis and volunteering as a Onesie Street Collector during our annual Street Appeal, what she laughingly refers to as “prancing around in a onesie”.

“I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for the Wellington Free Ambulance paramedics. This old girl is still alive and kicking thanks to them!”

If you’d like to make sure we can continue to be here for our communities when they need us the most, people like Rose, completely free of charge, please donate today.