Feet ripped out at funfair!
Kaitlyn's feet were ripped off at the funfair
Sunday 28th December 2008
I'll admit, I didn't have a good feeling about the Superman Tower of Power ride that day.
'I'll give it a miss,' I said.
'Why?' my mates cried. 'It's the best ride here.'
They were right. Standing 177ft tall, it loomed over the crowds. Once you were strapped into the seat, the ride slowly climbed to the top of a central pillar. When it stopped, you had three seconds before it plummeted to the ground.
'C'mon,' my friend, Blair Johnson, then 13, begged.
My other friend, Arin Valsted, 13, was already joining the queue.
We were three weeks into our summer holiday and this was our second trip to our local amusement park, Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom. So, nerves tingling, I sat in a seat between Blair and Arin. The heavy, padded harness locked down, and butterflies fluttered round my belly.
'Here we go!' I laughed nervously.
It took a couple of minutes for the ride to slowly climb to the top. Any second now…
'One, two, three!' we all shouted.
Suddenly, I was screaming as the ground hurtled towards us. As the ride slowed to a stop, we all laughed.
Just then, one of the ride's operators walked up to us.
'There's no queue, so do you want another go?' she asked.
'Yes please,' we all cried. We were the only people on the ride. Cool!
'Can I swap places with you?' Blair asked.
She was sat on my left, but she wanted a go in the middle.
'OK,' I shrugged.
Slowly, the ride began to climb. Then, 20ft up. Thwack!
It sounded like someone had cracked a giant whip above our heads.We started to giggle nervously. But our laughter turned to screams as the ride momentarily dropped, before continuing to climb upwards. I could smell burning rubber, then, all of a sudden, metal cables rained down on us. As they slammed into my face, pain exploded. Stunned, I looked over at Blair and Arin. Their faces were bleeding. Blood was dripping from my own nose, soaking into my tank top.
'Why aren't they stopping the ride?' I whimpered.
Suddenly we were all screaming.
'Help!' we sobbed. 'We're going to die'
And that's when I noticed a cable had wrapped around our necks. In a few seconds, the ride
would plummet downwards.
'Get it off!' I yelled.
All three of us started to tug, clawing at the metal. Somehow, we managed to pull it loose.
A crowd had gathered below. People were screaming and pointing up at us in horror. I realised we were going to die. I turned to Blair.
'I love you,' I said.
In those few seconds that we hung, suspended, my mind went into overdrive. I was an only child and close to my parents. I pictured my bedroom, the posters on the wall. Riley, my Bulldog, and Bean, my Jack Russell, popped into my head. It was my life, flashing before
my eyes. As the ride started to fall, I covered my face. I felt a jolt, like someone was yanking me by my legs. Then a pain so fierce, I imagined myself strapped to an electric chair, thousands of volts raging through me. My feet felt like they were on fire. As the ride slowed to a stop, I uncovered my face. I was alive.
Then I noticed I was slumped way down in the seat, the bottoms of my legs dangling out of sight. I looked up at Blair.
'Are you OK?' I asked.
'Y-yes,' she spluttered.
Something in her eyes scared me.
'Am I OK?' I said.
'You're going to be fine,' she said slowly.
What was wrong?
As paramedics arrived, I took another look at my legs. I was in such shock, I couldn't comprehend the horror that was right under my nose. My left thigh was flat, and bone was protruding from the bloody mass. My eyes drifted to my right leg. It was twisted and covered in blood. Lower, where my ankle should have been, I saw just bone. My foot was gone. Gone. Remaining eerily calm, I wondered if my other foot was gone too.
'Give me my feet,' I snapped.
'You're going to be OK,' was all the paramedic could say.
Why weren't they listening to me?
'I want my feet!' I insisted.
I was given drugs for the pain and that's where my memory starts to fail. I remember arriving at the University Hospital, in Louisville. The next time I opened my eyes, my parents were there.
'My feet have been cut off,' I told them. 'But I'm not worried. I have my eyes, so I can still see you.'
'That's good,' Mum said gently, realising I was in shock.
The next time I woke up, I was in a different room.
'We're right here,' Mum smiled.
She explained I'd been flown by helicopter to the Vanderbilt University Medical Centre in Nashville, Tennessee.
'Your feet were cut off above the ankle,' my dad, Randy, 39, told me.
As our carriage had plummeted, a loose cable had cut them off. My trainer-clad feet had dropped onto a canopy. A park employee had stored them in a freezer box.
'They managed to reattach the right foot,' Dad said. 'But not the left.'
I guess I should have felt lucky. If we hadn't loosened the cable from our necks, we'd have been decapitated. It was hard to feel 'lucky' though.
At 13, my life was in tatters.Two weeks after the accident, a nurse was changing my bandages when I caught a glimpse of my amputated stump. I felt sick. But a couple of days later, they unveiled my reattached foot.
'Oh God!' I cried.
It was grossly swollen. Big ugly stitches looped around my ankle where it had been torn from my body. I broke down. How would I lead a normal life? When Blair and Arin came to visit, it was awkward. I didn't know what to say to them.They'd walked away with a few cuts and a fear of lifts.
Then I remembered we'd swapped places. I couldn't bear the thought it could have been Blair in this hospital bed. After four weeks, I was allowed home but I didn't know who I was any more. The old Kaitlyn went shopping with her mates and was popular with the boys. What now?
'You're beautiful. You can achieve anything in life,' Mum insisted.
First my stump refused to heal. Then bone started growing through it so doctors decided to amputate more of my leg.
But with the setbacks, there was hope too. Mum and Dad had given up their jobs to care for me and, six months after the accident, they were there as I tried to take my first steps.
'It's impossible,' I sighed.
But Mum stood behind me, arms outstretched, ready to catch me.
'You'll do it,' she insisted.
Strangely, I had no feeling in my reattached foot, but I could feel the foot I'd lost.
'Give it another go,' Dad urged.
Gritting my teeth, I swung my foot in front of my prosthetic. I wobbled, then straightened up.
'You're walking!' Mum cried.
It was the best feeling I'd ever had. Now, a year on, I'm getting stronger all the time. This May, a report placed blame for the accident on a faulty cable. We tried to sue the park for negligence and in November, we reached an out-of-court settlement. I can't go into how much we were awarded, but it was enough to cover the medical bills, my loss of future earnings, and my pain and suffering. I want to put this behind me.
'You can do whatever you want in life,' Mum always said.
Now, I'm choosing to believe her.