While I Was Sleeping: How a team of Royal Adelaide Hospital health heroes put Ben Hyde back together

For SA’s unsung health heroes, saving people is simply their job. But when Tania Hyde’s husband was in a catastrophic crash, their compassion was life-changing.

• Watch ‘While I Was Sleeping’ documentary

In the frantic late hours of any given night, road crash victims will be rushed to the Royal Adelaide Hospital’s emergency room.

Many of them have suffered severe injuries. Brain bleeding. Fractured spinal cords. Limbs requiring amputation. Burns. Internal haemorrhaging.

As a journalist, The Advertiser’s then-deputy editor Ben Hyde had covered countless numbers of those accidents.

But on October 4, 2021, Ben was the victim. And, as he was wheeled into the RAH’s emergency department at 10.29pm, the clock began ticking to repair his shattered body.

Drugged, speeding driver Luigi Gligora had ploughed into the back of Ben’s car at 170km/h, the impact so severe the vehicle was left a mangled wreck and Ben unconscious and desperately clinging to life.

As Ben laid in agony, after his wife Tania was given just fleeting moments to see her husband, a team of skilled medical professionals got to work.

Ben suffered extensive, life-threatening injuries. Picture: Tania Hyde

Ben remained in hospital for a month after the crash. Picture: Tania Hyde

Intubated and placed into an induced coma, where he would remain for almost three days, about a dozen specialists conducted a trauma assessment to determine his injuries.

The list was extensive.

Ben had multiple sites of bleeding on the brain, a ruptured bladder, splenic aneurysm and damaged bowel and fractured vertebrae, pelvis and ankle.

On Ben’s torso and arm, the flames inside the vehicle had burnt the full thickness of the skin down to his muscle, while his windpipe had also been severely damaged.

Once his life-threatening injuries had been stabilised, the team from the RAH’s Adult Burns Service conducted a graft, taking thin pieces of skin from Ben’s thigh to transfer to the wounds, while urologist Dr Diwei Lin operated to repair the “significant tear” the high-speed impact had caused to his bladder.

RAH Adult Burns Service staff Patrick Coghlan, Stuart Harper and Marcus Wagstaff, who helped heal extensive burns to Ben’s arm and torso. Picture: Tom Huntley

Royal Adelaide Hospital surgeon Diwei Lin meets Ben for the first time since he performed lifesaving surgery on him. Picture: Mark Brake

READ MORE:

* WATCH THE FULL DOCUMENTARY

* READ BEN’S STORY IN HIS OWN WORDS

*ARRIVE ALIVE CAMPAIGN LAUNCH

For the medical experts at the RAH, treating injuries such as Ben’s is a regular part of their day-to-day work.

But for Tania, the emergency department was a terrifying unknown.

“Ten, 12 people were around (Ben) all doing bits and pieces … I came in and he said, ‘Hey sweetie I love you, how are the boys?’,” she said.

“He had chunks of skin missing on (his) arm, which we didn’t know at the time were burns, and was crying out in pain.”

In the chaos, ICU nurse Rochelle ‘Rocky’ Smith became – in an apt namesake – Tania’s rock.

“It would’ve been the hardest day of Tania’s life. For me, I always just think, ‘What if it was someone that I loved in the bed?’, so you give someone that respect,” Ms Smith said.

From the breathing tube to the ventilator, Ms Smith calmly explained the medical mechanisms to Tania and reassured her they were all there for a reason.

“I say to everyone, ‘If I don’t look stressed, you don’t look stressed. If there’s something beeping, that’s my job – you just be here’.”

ICU nurse Rochelle 'Rocky' Smith, who became Ben’s family’s rock during those first days in hospital. Picture: Tom Huntley

Ben with his son Oliver, then aged 5, while recovering in hospital. Picture: Tania Hyde

To this day, the impact of that invaluable compassion and kindness has remained with Tania, who fought back tears as she was reunited with Ms Smith while filming Ben’s documentary While I Was Sleeping.

It was just six simple words from ‘Rocky’ that reassured her Ben would survive.

“She was incredible. She made us feel so much better. At one point I remember asking her, ‘Is he gonna pull through?’,” Tania said.

“(Rocky) said, ‘On a scale of one to 10, your husband is about an eight or a nine … but don’t worry, I’ve seen nines pull through before’.

“As soon as she said that, I just knew he was going to be okay.”

Speaking at the premiere of While I Was Sleeping, Premier Peter Malinauskas said Ben’s story spoke to the quality of care offered by South Australia’s health heroes.

“The men and women that are at the front line every day, keeping people alive … they are magnificent,” Mr Malinauskas said.

“They do it because they place a high value in life and because they care.

“That’s not just because of the clinical knowledge they have, but because they have a high degree of empathy, and that certainly came through in this story.”

RAH doctors and nurses with Ben during the filming of his documentary While I Was Sleeping. Picture: Tom Huntley

Three years after being discharged, Ben’s recovery is far from over. The physical and mental scars remain.

But so too does the gratitude for those who kept him alive – and their acts of compassion – in those critical early moments in a health system we often take for granted.

While making While I Was Sleeping, Ben was given the opportunity to reconnect with, and in some cases, meet for the first time, those who saved his life.

“For them it’s difficult, because they can’t afford to get too emotionally attached to what they do,” Ben said.

“The reality is though that what they’re doing every day is life changing, life saving and life altering for so many people.

“It’s just been the most stark reminder of how incredible they all are.”

As it turns out, the gratitude flows both ways.

“I see people at their most vulnerable, and I’m very, very grateful to see somebody who’s well out of all this down the road,” Dr Lin said.

“That’s why I do what I do – it’s very nice to see somebody come out better because of something that I could have done.”