Grateful to be alive

LUKE PARKER

A SIMPLE thank you card wasn't enough for crash survivors Bob and Linda Linn.

They wanted to do something a little more personal for their rescuers.

The Linns have just presented members of the Mangatangi Volunteer Fire Brigade with a cheque for $1100 and set up a trust fund to support their future efforts.

The money was handed over during an emotional reunion on June 20 – five years after the horrific crash that changed the Linns' lives.

The Massey residents were driving with family members towards Whangamata along State Highway 2 just past the Bombay Hills when they were involved in a head-on smash at 7.15am on January 23, 2005.

"The driver of the other car fell asleep at the top of the hill and hit our flat-faced van at 120kmh," Mrs Linn says.

"We were doing 70kmh."

The 58-year-old was on the passenger side of the van.

The other driver came straight through the front windshield and landed on her but amazingly escaped with minor injuries.

Mrs Linn was not so fortunate.

"I lost my right leg at the scene of the accident, broke my hips, pelvis and both femurs were shattered as well as my tibia and fibula," she says. "All the bones in my foot were completely smashed.

"I also lost my spleen, had bowel and liver damage and 300ml of blood in my lungs. I fought for three days to live and then spent a year in hospital trying to recover. I have had nine surgeries and they are ongoing.

"The pain was so excruciating that you get past that point. I was literally fighting for my life."

Mr Linn, 63, smashed both his feet, a shoulder and his arm in two places. He lost several teeth and received 43 stitches under his mouth after the steering wheel split the skin open.

"I was in hospital for three months," he says.

"Our son Paul and his partner Debbie had bowel damage. His best friend Chris had a broken hip and also had bowel damage."

Mrs Linn says the Mangatangi brigade was there immediately.

"They all came off farms," she says. "They're all volunteers.

"I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for those men. There's not a day that passes that I don't think about what they did. They mean everything to me.

"I couldn't express my words in a card," she says.

"So we set up a trust fund with the help of ANZ the year after I came home. I sold stuff on TradeMe and my mum and cousin donated money."

- © Fairfax NZ News