'I took one look at his face and knew he was in trouble'

THE victim of a horror car crash has had an emotional reunion with the woman who saved his life.

Megan Hurst and her mother Robin Parker are thanked by Ron Berry and his mother Hanne Rose, after Megan saved his life by getting Ron to the hospital after he was involved in a serious car crash. Picture: Marc Stapelberg

MEGAN Hurst's 45th birthday is not one she is likely to ever forget.

She was reunited with the person to whom she was able to give the ultimate gift - the gift of life.

It was a deeply emotional scene outside Lismore Base Hospital, when Ms Hurst again met with Ron Berry.

Only this time, there were tears of joy.

If it wasn't for Ms Hurst's compassionate act back in March, Mr Berry would certainly have bled out and died.

Mr Berry had been involved in a head on collision with another vehicle on Cawongla Rd, which saw the top of his foot mangled, severing an artery.

Ms Hurst and her 16-year-old-daughter, Holly, drove past the crash at 9am in their Nissan Pathfinder.

They stopped and volunteered to take Mr Berry to hospital.

The ambulance had only just been dispatched when the trio arrived at emergency.

His haemoglobin levels were already critical.

Ms Hurst patted Mr Berry on the back and told him she "hoped he'd be okay", before taking her car, filled with blood, to be cleaned.

On Friday the couple were reunited back at Lismore Base Hospital, where they held each other for more than a minute.

No words were needed, but the sentiment could be seen in the tears of their respective mothers, who had come along to be a part of the special reunion.

It was Mr Berry's mother, Hanne Rose, who started the train of events which led to the discovery of "the stranger who saved my life", when she wrote a letter to The Northern Star asking for help in finding the "one kind lady Samaritan".

As the two exchanged memories of the fateful morning, Ms Rose looked on and said: "You brought him back, we want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts".

The reunion came about after Ms Hurst saw Thursday's front page of The Northern Star in Farmer Charlie's in Lismore.

She turned to the shop assistant and said: "That's me they're talking about". She then rang the paper.

Read the original story here.

Ms Hurst said she had been wondering about Mr Berry ever since the accident but thought, "if he'd died I'd have read about it in the paper. Maybe one day I'd bump into him in the street and say, 'Ron is that you?'."

She did ring the hospital but the shift had changed and, because she did not have his surname, she was unable to get any information for privacy reasons.

On the day of the crash, Ms Hurst recalled there was some confusion as to whether an ambulance had been called.

"I took one look at his face and knew he was in trouble. He was bleeding badly and asked, 'can I just get in your car? I need to get to hospital'," she said.

"His eyes just said, 'get me outta here'.

"Someone at the scene asked if I was sure I was willing to take him in my car and I was like, yeah, of course.

"He was really pale and my daughter was like, 'Oh my God', but reached for a pillowcase we had in the car to wrap around the wound.

"I drove really fast but every time we hit a bump, he reeled in agony. And then we hit traffic and were stuck behind a truck for ages.

"That's when I looked down and saw the whole of the top of his foot was off - it had been caught in the pedals during the impact of the crash.

"I told him he'd be okay and and tried to keep him talking as he was in shock. We made light of the state of both our cars and he told me he was on his way to his first day at uni.

"He had his head on the dashboard but every now and then we made eye contact, and I will never forget the look on his face. He was in so much pain.

After Ms Hurst dropped Mr Berry at the hospital, she saw the amount of blood in the footwell on the passenger side and went straight to Car Lovers in Lismore.

"My daughter was laughing at me because every time I went around the corner I retched," she said.

"She couldn't see the way the blood was sloshing around.

"It was like something out of a horror film as the watery blood was flushed out of the car and into the drain with the high pressure hose."

But, miraculously, Mr Berry is recovering well.

On Monday he had a procedure to have the pins removed from his foot and he will soon be walking on crutches and doing physiotherapy to learn to walk again.

"I'm glad I stopped," Ms Hurst said.

"I had only just done the training to renew my first aid certificate at work.

"They tell you to always wait for the ambulance in case something goes wrong in these circumstances.

"But, I would do it again. It was a desperate situation and we were a long way from town."

Mr Berry is glad too.

He "tears up every time" when his thinks of what Ms Hurst did for him.

"Another type of person would have said, 'not in my car'," he said.

"I needed to say thank you.

"I am just so elated to be alive. It has given me a whole new perspective on life."

The couple exchanged numbers and agreed to meet up again.