Symbol of hope for Burnside Primary School teacher Dennis Smith, crushed by falling tree

AN ANCIENT symbol of peace and hope, paper cranes have begun the healing process for teacher Dennis Smith and students at Burnside Primary School.

AN ANCIENT symbol of peace and hope, paper cranes have begun the healing process for teacher Dennis Smith and students at Burnside Primary School.

Mr Smith's Year 3 class was shocked to hear the teacher had been crushed by a falling tree in the Adelaide Hills, leaving him unconscious and in intensive care.

Within days of the accident on September 6, students began folding 1000 origami cranes. "It gave the children something really tangible to do that they thought would be helping Mr Smith, so it was part of the healing," said Burnside Primary School principal Sharon Broadbent.

"The lovely part was that we had some older children helping the younger children, so it really became a focus of the caring and nurturing side that Dennis is so well known for."

The paper cranes now hang in the foyer of the Hampstead Rehabilitation Centre's spinal injuries unit, where Mr Smith has spent the past 13 weeks.

In Japanese legend, a wish is granted in return for 1000 paper cranes and for Mr Smith's family their wish is to have him home for Christmas.

As he lay pinned beneath the limbs of a ghost gum in the Adelaide Hills, Mr Smith called out for his wife Melanie and son Tom, 16.

Twelve days later, having been resuscitated three times before reaching the Royal Adelaide Hospital, it was their familiar voices that brought the 58-year-old back.

"I just remember having my family there. I remember lying there with my eyes closed and hearing their voices," he said.

Mr Smith had been helping neighbours on Nioka Drive at Ironbank to remove debris from a fallen stringybark, which SES crews had removed about 10.30pm.

"I said to the property owner, we'll just check to see if there's any other damage," Mr Smith said. "I got three or four steps up the embankment when the tree fell."

Left with badly damaged internal organs, broken ribs, shredded muscles and bones snapped from his spine, Mr Smith credits quick-thinking neighbours, ambulance officers, intensive care, trauma unit and Hampstead Centre staff with his recovery.

For Mr Smith, the paper cranes are a reminder of his quest to once again walk the hallways of his school.