Lucy Knight: A Decision I will never regret

Vanessa McCall, Lucy Knight, Max (3), Hazel James and ambulance officer Phil Hewetson. Photo / Doug Sherring

Opinion

Lucy Knight writes about the year since her life changed in an instant.

For someone not normally in the limelight, I still find it difficult to grasp I am known the length of the country and beyond.

There are moments I wonder how my life could have remained uninterrupted, my identity still relatively unknown.

But that would have meant not acting, and maybe someone else getting harmed. It may have come close to costing my life but it's a decision I will never regret.

I wasn't expecting last Wednesday - the anniversary of the attack - to hold any significance, but found it really difficult to say goodbye to the children as they left for school.

I had waved goodbye to them on the same day last year expecting to pick them up that afternoon. They were also expecting me to turn up at school.

But I never made it. Instead I was being rushed to hospital with a life-threatening injury that would change things forever.

It makes you realise how things can change in an instant. I've recently started wondering what if I had arrived at the shops 10 minutes earlier but I will never say I regret stepping in.

The most difficult part of this past year has been the fatigue that comes with a brain injury. It affects everyone around me, especially my family.

It's really hard and at times I feel guilty I can't play with the kids as much as I used to but I just don't have the energy.

I've got a scar under my hair. On the surface I appear recovered. People think you're fine even when you're not. It's very much a hidden injury.

Things that had never bothered me previously do now and I'm blindsided by unexpected triggers.

I get upset easily. One little thing goes wrong and it can seem like my day is over.

I consider myself to be doing well if I get up and get the kids off to school and pick them up again.

The more tired I am, the more I stumble on words or forget names.

Too much noise is overwhelming. The injury took away my sense of smell. For ages I thought I was still the same Lucy but I've changed a lot.

I simply never knew at the time how hurt I had been and how frightening it was for my family and friends that day.

No memory of the two harrowing weeks I was in hospital was possibly a bonus for me.

I'm perhaps a bit more cynical and jaded. I call it being a realist. My husband Peter and our children have had to adjust to lots of changes over the past 12 months.

I've had great assistance from ACC and remain hugely grateful to my family, local community and the thousands of strangers who showed love and generosity at such a dark time.

The support and friendship from the Chinese community has been overwhelming. It was such an ordinary, unremarkable errand.

I had my youngest, Max and Bene, in tow and I had worked out there was just enough time to duck into the supermarket to get dinner before picking up the older children from school.

And just as I was about to go in I witnessed an attack unfolding before me.
I guess you don't know until you're in that situation how you are going to respond.

I could not stand by and let someone be hurt. I couldn't just carry on and do my shopping.

For me it was never about saving the bag being snatched; it was about helping the woman who was lying on the ground being robbed.

But this is my new journey. I trust I will keep improving, and must accept this is how things are for now.

I can't smell the freesias growing in the garden this spring. But I know that beautiful fragrance is still there, and in time I will be able to enjoy it again.

How the drama unfolded

•Lucy Knight and her two youngest children were shopping at Countdown in Northcote on September 23 last year.

• Lucy saw a man trying to snatch a woman's handbag and tried to stop him.
He punched her to the ground causing life-threatening injuries.

•During her time in hospital and afterwards she was dubbed the good Samaritan and New Zealanders dug deep to raise money.

•Hendrix Hauwai, 17, was jailed in February for four years and nine months for the attack and other offences.

Silver lining to ripple effect

Hazel James

Hazel James takes extra measures of personal security after witnessing the attack that came close to claiming Lucy Knight's life.

James, who helped comfort Knight's distraught young children, says whenever she heads to the local shops she can't help but think about the brazen, violent robbery.

"It's imprinted on my mind. I'm so vigilant with my handbag, holding on to it at the eftpos machine.

"I'm always looking to see if anybody's watching when I put my card in," she said.

James, an office manager at a funeral services company, had always been vigilant but the events left her with a heightened awareness. "It puts you on your guard."

She vividly recalls the moments leading up to Knight crashing to the ground with a sickening thud.

She raced to the injured woman and saw a child crying in a shopping trolley and another standing holding on to the trolley.

James, a grandmother, instinctively comforted the distraught youngsters.

"While we were waiting for her mum - I had Bene and another lady had Max - we took them inside the supermarket and calmed them down.

"The littlest one kept saying, 'mummy down, mummy down on the ground'."

She said the women kept the young brothers safe until their family arrived to take them home.

"They'd obviously seen what had gone on and it was better for them to be with someone they knew really well."

Phil Hewetson

Lucy Knight hugs ambulance officer Phil Hewetson who came to her aid one year ago. Photo / Doug Sherring.

Phil Hewetson has kept a close eye on Lucy Knight's recovery - and marvelled at her fightback.

The St Johns paramedic - one of the first on the scene - said the circumstances surrounding the attack had stayed with him. "I've followed this case through news reports and, given her condition, I was very concerned about what the outcome would be. I have been amazed."

Hewetson recalls pulling up to a busy, emotional scene at the Northcote shops.

"There were a lot of distraught, distressed people around," said Hewetson.

He quickly assessed Knight who had injuries to the front and back of her head.

But he was concerned her bizarre behaviour as she drifted in and out of consciousness pointed to a serious brain injury.

This sparked a second ambulance with an intensive care paramedic on board to race to the scene before she was taken to Auckland Hospital for treatment.

"Our concern with a brain injury is time so we needed to get her to the nearest trauma hospital," said Hewetson.

He praised the efforts of the public who took a lead role in the aftermath of the attack, comforting Knight and looking after her children.

Vanessa McCall

Vanessa McCall admits still feeling nervous using the money machine at the Northcote shops after her role in the aftermath of the attack.

The North Shore mum-of-two, who helped care for Knight's preschoolers on the day, said she was always on her guard.

"I was wary afterwards and I would always get out of the car and look around me to make sure I was not being followed.

"I'm still a bit wary about using the ATM machine there."

She continues to shop at the centre even though others have chosen not to.

McCall said the incident affected her for a long time as it happened on the eve of the anniversary of her father dying unexpectedly the previous year.

"I remember I walked into my daughter's classroom, picked her up and gave her a hug and cried. I was shaking. It was horrific."

She had seen Knight getting out of her car moments before the attack and knew she had not arrived alone.

"Because I had seen her put her kids in the trolley, I knew she had kids.

"I walked out and they [other bystanders] were on the ground with Lucy. Her kids were in the trolley crying, looking at her down on the ground.

"The children needed looking after and, being a mum, I just looked after them. There was nothing else I could do."