Woman in intensive care with broken back after tree falls on car during Cyclone Gabrielle

Thursday, 16 February 2023

Kathryn Gloistein, pictured with partner Khalid Linton, is in intensive care after a pine tree fell on her car during Cyclone Gabrielle.

A woman is in intensive care after a falling pine tree crushed her car during Cyclone Gabrielle, leaving her trapped with a broken back and her partner convinced she was going to die.

Kathryn Gloistein was driving her partner Khalid Linton and his friend back to Taupō late on Tuesday evening after they had been called out to a power outage in Wairakei, just 10 minutes away.

Linton said they were only going 40kph due to disruption to the roads from the cyclone when they heard a big snap and a pine tree fell straight on top of the car.

The tree fell jolted Gloistein’s head forward, causing serious injuries to her spine.

Damaging strong winds from cyclone Gabrielle caused trees to fall over roads and blocked them in the North Island.

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A tree fell down at Hilltop School, Taupō after the region was ravaged by Cyclone Gabrielle.

Linton and his friend managed to get out of the smashed car and call emergency services.

Unable to move or touch Gloistein without making her situation worse, Linton could only reassure her that things would be OK.

“We listened to her screaming, she said to me, ‘I can’t feel my legs, I can’t breathe’,” he said.

Cyclone Gabrielle ripped through trees and forests in the Taupō region. Now the recovery is under way.

“I thought she was going to die.”

Linton described it as being “a massive freak accident – wrong place wrong time”.

Hato Hone St John arrived after 45 minutes and Gloistein was taken to Taupō Hospital.

“She cracked two vertebrae and the top one was almost shattered,” Linton said.

“She also has four fractures on her left hand, lacerations to her forehead and artery on top of her nose.”

Linton said there was hope on Wednesday as Gloistein began to recover the feeling in her legs, telling him her “feet were feeling cold”.

Linton and Gloistein, who works at Countdown in Taupō, have only lived in the town for eight months, moving from Amberley in rural North Canterbury for work.

Gloistein is currently in Auckland’s Middlemore Hospital, where she has undergone spinal surgery.

A hospital spokesperson said she was in a critical but stable condition.

Linton said it was now a waiting game and a long road to recovery.

A Givealittle page has been set up to support her family go back and forth from Christchurch to support her.