Crash survivor and safety campaigner unveils 'world first' centre to cut road tragedies
Tuesday, 3 November 2020
A car crash survivor and road safety campaigner hopes to open a health and education centre in Christchurch to offer specialist post-trauma care and help cut the number of tragedies on New Zealand’s roads.
Sarah Dean, founder of the Road Traffic Accident Trauma Charitable Trust, hopes a national road trauma centre will be a hub for clinical care, research and safety initiatives.
Under her vision the centre would be a haven for those who have suffered in road crashes, giving them access to advice and care from specialist nurses and counselling from psychologists and therapists who would be specially trained to deal with road trauma.
Family doctors, particularly those in rural areas, would be able to get help so they can provide the right support for those involved in crashes, while safety education initiatives would target school children, the public and industries that use roads heavily.
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Dean believes the centre would be the first of its kind in New Zealand, and the plan is for Christchurch to be a pilot project before services are rolled out nationally.
“If you’ve been affected by cancer you go to the Cancer Society, but there’s nothing for people affected by road crashes – there’s no one, central place of belonging,” she said.
“That’s vitally important, and that’s why one of the main purposes is that people who’ve been impacted by road crashes finally have a place they can call home.
“There’s so much isolation and a lot of people feel lost in the system.”
Funding for the centre is not yet in place, it is unclear how many it will employ and the charity is still finalising its business case, but Dean said she is in talks with government agencies, police, the Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) and ChristchurchNZ about her proposals.
CDHB chairman Sir John Hansen has expressed his “personal support” for the charity’s ambitions, though the health board is not formally involved with plans for the centre.
The proposals also have the backing of some clinicians, including Dr David Bowie, intensive care specialist and chairman of the New Zealand Flying Doctor Service.
Bowie said the centre would be the first of its kind in the world and offered a “unique opportunity” to educate the public and enable collaboration between health professionals and road users to cut road deaths and injuries.
“At the moment we still have a higher death rate per head than the UK or Australia, and whatever interventions there are at the moment are not having the desired effect.”
A location is also yet to be secured, but there are hopes it could be a purpose-built facility near Christchurch Hospital, or in the New Harley Chambers development at St Asaph St.
The annual road death toll has fluctuated in recent years, falling from 384 in 2009 to 352 last year.
Dean, who grew up in Christchurch, knows first hand the impact being involved in a car crash can have.
When she was 20 she lost control of her car on black ice, spun “like a merry-go-round” and smashed into a parked car on Gayhurst Rd in Dallington, leaving her trapped and covered in glass.
She blacked out and was left with undiagnosed severe concussion, something she is affected by to this day despite the accident happening in 2003.
Ten months later she was hit side-on at an intersection by a 16-year-old on a restricted licence driving her parents’ car for the first time, leaving her concussed again and having to leave work, which she paid for with her savings for a house deposit.
The crashes caused chronic neck and back pain and nerve damage in her spine, for which she still takes medication and has weekly physiotherapy.
“I understand what it feels like to think ‘this could be it’ … I understand the socio-economic cost, the burden to our society.”
The charity, which runs the Canterbury Road Trauma Awards event and the road accident remembrance day, is unveiling its plan for the trauma centre on Wednesday – including a $2.2 million fit-out and design – as well as efforts to raise money.
Dean hopes to secure funds from corporate sponsors, the Crown and a crowdfunding campaign which will begin early next year, and the charity expects the centre to be under way in 12 to 18 months.