Showdown 46: Crows inspired by resilience of paralysed young footballer Katelin Gunn
Lying in a hospital bed, recovering from a devastating car accident that left her paralysed from the waist down, there was one thing that kept young footballer Katelin Gunn smiling: her favourite team — the Crows. Now it’s her turn to inspire them.
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Lying in a hospital bed, recovering from a devastating car accident that left her paralysed from the waist down, there was one thing that kept promising young footballer Katelin Gunn smiling: her favourite team — the Crows.
So, when Adelaide co-captain Rory Sloane popped his head around the corner of her Women’s and Children’s Hospital room in March for a surprise visit, the 15-year-old was overwhelmed with excitement.
“He’s my favourite player,” she said.
“Some of the AFLW players visited me too … it really made my day.”
But while the Crows have helped inspire Katelin on her five-month road to recovery, now she’s inspiring them with the perseverance and resilience she’s shown in the greatest battle of her short life.
And when the Crows run out onto Adelaide Oval for Saturday night’s Showdown 46, Katelin will be at the top of the race, cheering them on, thanks to support from Variety the Children’s Charity.
Katelin may only be 15, but she’s already faced the biggest life challenge of all: that it can change unexpectedly in an instant. One moment, she was a promising sportswoman, named as Scotch College middle school’s women’s football captain and the next, she was clinging to life, on board an emergency flight from her family’s remote Eyre Peninsula farm to hospital in Adelaide.
On December 16, 2018, Kaitlin had been celebrating the start of the summer holidays with school friends when the car they were driving crashed.
She was unconscious and bleeding profusely from gashes in her right arm when her parents, Stuart and Julie, found her and her two friends who were conscious.
Stuart recalls calling an ambulance and as he waited for who-knows-how-long, he cradled his gravely injured daughter in his arms.
“I just talked to Katelin and said she had to be strong and hang on for mum and dad,” he said.
Still unconscious, Katelin was rushed to Streaky Bay — some 65km from the family farm — where she was met by an emergency retrieval team who flew her to Adelaide.
“The hardest bit was we had to say goodbye to Katelin when she flew out at 4.30pm, then we had to go to Ceduna and wait until 7pm to get a flight and it wasn’t until 9.30pm that we arrived at the WCH,” Stuart said.
“As we walked into the hospital, we weren’t quite sure what we were arriving to.”
Surgeons briefed them: their daughter had suffered multiple injuries, she had three fractures in her neck, had crushed the T8 in her spine and there was bruising on the T12. She wouldn’t walk again.
She had bleeding on her liver, spleen, small intestine and kidneys. She’d broken ribs and had badly bruised lungs. The large gashes on her arm looked awful, but were relatively minor.
In lengthy surgery, doctors inserted screws and rods in her back and she was put in an induced coma for three days.
After almost two weeks in intensive care, headaches and vomiting started and doctors discovered she had fluid build-up on the brain and she underwent further surgery.
What lay ahead were months of hospital-bound, intensive therapy.
“I don’t remember the first month being in hospital,” she says.
“(Now), it’s about adapting to the changes that have happened.
“It’s a whole new learning experience for the family and for me.”
Sloane, who visited Katelin again last week as she was preparing to spend her first night away from hospital, said he was overjoyed to hear of her progress.
“I visited Katelin earlier this year when she was in hospital, and was blown away by how strong she had been throughout her time there,” Sloane said.
“We can’t wait to see Katelin when we run out on Saturday, no doubt she’ll give us all some inspiration before the Showdown.”
Occupational therapist, Mathew Schibani, said Katelin’s progress had been phenomenal.
“It’s been intensive therapy, multiple hours a day … some of the goals have been getting her mobile and moving in a wheelchair, getting her more independent with her self-care and daily tasks, so showering herself, dressing herself,” he said.
“We’ve helped with fatigue management, cognitive skills, thinking, relearning, then also just managing her emotional wellbeing and the family’s emotional wellbeing and then how they are recovering from the grief and loss from everything.”
Nurse Sarah Hartzenberg praised the way the teenager had faced her tough recovery.
“She said to us from the start: ‘I don’t cry because there’s no point, I’m just going to look on the bright side’ and for a 15-year-old girl, she’s so wise,” Hartzenberg said.
“Katelin reminds us all that life is short and you just have to keep going, her perseverance has taught us all something new.”
Before the car accident, Katelin was a promising young footballer, playing mainly centre half-forward for the Mitcham Hawkes and Unley Jets. A stint in the SANFLW was a possibility after she was selected as the inaugural middle school women’s football captain at Scotch College, where she is a boarder.
But she’s not giving up on her dream of playing the sport she loves and has already discovered the AFL Wheelchair League.
“Until I get into that my goal is to start coaching at school,” Katelin said, adding that had set another goal of playing basketball at the 2024 Paralympics.
It’s no surprise that sport will continue to play a role in Katelin’s life. Stuart said his daughter started kicking the footy when she was about eight.
“She’d just go out the back of our house on the farm and just kick the football to herself for hours,” he said.
”She played all other sports, but as soon as she found out there was girls football that was that.”
On Monday she was fully discharged from hospital and now the task of finding her “new normal” begins.
That starts on Saturday when she does something she’s always done: cheering loudly for the team she loves.
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