A YEAR ago on August 16, one day after his 10th birthday, our son Sebastian was riding his bike in Coondle when it was accidently struck and dragged under a 4WD vehicle travelling at about 90km/h.
Sebastian suffered severe traumatic brain injury, a punctured lung and a broken back and neck.
First at the scene was my oldest son Theodore, followed by my wife Olivia, who started to care for Sebastian.
He would have died very soon after if it had not been for the lifesaving actions of critical care paramedic Hamish from the RAC rescue helicopter.
Local St John Ambulance volunteers Paul and Carolynne attended the scene, joined by Toodyay police officer Jodi.
They took Sebastian to the Toodyay Showgrounds Oval where the RAC rescue team saved him from dying.
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Our son was flown to Perth Children’s Hospital and he remained there until we finally got him home just before last Christmas.
Sebastian was in a coma in the intensive care unit for three weeks before being transferred to the hospital’s high-dependency unit, followed by four months in a children’s ward.
Both Olivia and I lived at the hospital during that time and were very fortunate to get a room at Perth’s Ronald Macdonald house for the duration.
I didn’t return to work for about four months, and then had to go back to start paying bills.
Olivia stayed by Sebastian’s side every day he was in hospital, and we had a goal to get him home before last Christmas.
Olivia’s mum cared for our other children and stayed at our house so we could dedicate all our time to Sebastian.
Once the news started to break in Toodyay and surrounds, we started to get offers of help from all sorts of people.
We received food for our animals from the Toodyay Agricultural Society which delivered hay, and Caroline from Makit Hardware donated gas.
Monika arranged a Go Fund Me page which raised a lot of money that we put towards a van and to pay all the costs of not being in work and the expense travelling up and down from the hospital.
Nicole from the Toodyay Community Resource Centre got people together and organised so many things to help us keep going.
Toodyay Locals Care organiser Roz raised money at last year’s Toodyay Picnic Race Day and local monthly Farmers Market Markets, which was amazing.
We also want to thank all the totally generous people who donated to the Go Fund Me page, and all the people in Toodyay and surrounds that have helped us along the way, including our neighbours Graham and Vivienne.
We have been so blessed with the people at the local Baptist Church, Northam’s Avon Valley Seventh-day Adventist Church and many others, including people elsewhere in Australia and around the world who have been praying for Sebastian.
We published a YouTube video online at https://youtu.be/hMvfKfqLOmI to offer hope and encouragement for others to persevere with healing and recovery after a traumatic brain injury.
Toodyay has been such an amazing place to live but the community is what really makes it – I hope this letter can help people to support and care for each other.
Many thanks to all of you, and we are sorry if we missed someone special in this letter because there have been so many people that have touched our lives during this journey.
You will never be forgotten.
Simon and Olivia Gobbett and family
Coondle
