Amanda, was the young lady who was hit by a car while crossing the road and it happed in front of me, a car overtook me at speed and hit her.
I slowed to allow Amanda to cross and then the car started to overtake, I could not stop him and she ran and was struck. She flew in the air and crashed down into some bushes. He did not stop.
I stopped my car beside the road close by and went to help. Her head had a soft place on the side and there was blood coming from her mouth, nose and ear.
I called on my mobile for an ambulance, picked up the slight lady and attempted the kiss of life. I walked a short distance back toward the college and then the ambulance arrived.
"She’s dead" he said. Then they put an oxygen mask on her and ice on her head.
Later I heard that she was brain dead so I went to visit.
She was lying breathing but no sign of response so the surgeon said "she is brain dead, you can do as you like". I measured for electrical activity in the brain and there were spikes here and there, so she may be conscious but unable to communicate, but probably not. In the press there was an article about a German team who had a stitching machine that it could go inside an artery. So I asked them to give a clot busting drug (Tissue Plasmogen Activator) and the blood started to flow out of the wound in her head. she stirred. Her brain was occluded not dead. A blood transfusion was set up. The German team came and I watched on TV while they inserted a tube into the carotid artery in the neck and navigated round the semicircular artery that feed the brain which had torn. It had a camera in it and it was remote controlled by a surgeons hand. The gaping tear was flapping. The instrument hooked the tear with sharp hooks that were taking the thread and the tear was drawn together. The wound was then sealed with a narrow tape that stuck to the artery wall, it might have been superglue. The tape was made of a plastic material so that pavement epithelium would close over it.
The throbbing flow of blood from the wound in her head slowed and the wound was looked after. I think it was left open so contact with air made the natural healing easier.
She made a complete recovery after a transplant of nerve cells from her coccyx (I think they were grown in tissue culture) and she later wrote me a note to say “thank you” "My body is scarred but my face is ok". I read it and shredded it.
A few months later she turned up in crutches and pinned limbs and asked me to sleep with her, I was not too keen as I thought I might hurt her (because of her injuries). However we did and she left the next morning. I gather she had a child a while later, but I’ve not heard from her since.
Chris