Paige Abberfield was crushed by a car but refused to let her football dreams be crushed
When 15-year-old Paige Abberfield was hit by a 4WD last year, her injuries were so traumatic doctors told her she wouldn’t play football again. A year on, the remarkably determined teenager is proving them all wrong.
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THE records show that more than a year went past between scoring goals for Paige Abberfield. What that statistic hides, however, is how close the Newcastle Jets junior came to dying in the meantime, hit by and dragged under a four-wheel drive in April last year.
What it also hides is the tale of a teenager who spent months in a wheelchair and on crutches, and was told by doctors that she would never play football again.
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The fact that she has, and that last month Paige made an emotional debut for the Jets at the National Youth Championships at Coffs Harbour, turns what could have been a tragedy into an incredible story of bravery and determination which still hassome way to play out.
Her life changed on an April morning last year, motorbiking with her father at West Wallsend but blinded by a sudden cloud of dust.
Hit side on by a passing 4WD, she was dragged underneath it for several metres. Most of her ribs fractured, her pelvis splintered and in the process lacerate her kidney, and her leg was dislocated and twisted underneath her.
It took three days to stabilise her for surgery, and the surgeon who came to see her had bad news.
“The way he was going to do my surgery, I wouldn’t have been able to play soccer ever again,” said Paige. “But when I was in intensive care, my Aunty Robyn told the surgeon that I had to be able to play again.”
Aunty Robyn is one of the quiet heroes of this story, and wouldn’t take no for an answer. “She said, ‘You’d better get this one right mate, she’s our little soccer star’,” said Paige’s mother Susie. “It made him think, and when he came back on the morning of her surgery, he had a different strategy.”
That might all have seemed something of a moot point, given the months of rehab and recovery that stretched ahead of Paige just to be able to walk again.
“Half the time I didn’t really know anything because I was on so much medication,” she said. “Slowly it started to wear off and I just wanted to walk again at first, then run around again.
“I’d wake up some mornings crying, just wishing it had never happened and I could be back playing like I used to, and be as fit as I was.
“I knew I had to do all my rehab so I could get back to the level I had been, I just thought about pushing forward — but it was hard.”
In hospital for three weeks, Paige spent another two and a half months in a wheelchair, and a further six weeks on crutches. Hour upon hour was spent in the gym and the hydrotherapy pool, until doctors cleared her for a gradual return to training last December.
Numerous setbacks were shrugged off, like the wire in her pelvis moving position and poking her hip muscles, requiring another operation.
In her first training session back she twisted her ankle and suffered ligament damage. Other muscles reacted to being so long on the sidelines. But finally she was ready for a place on the bench, and in April came on against the Illawarra Stingrays.
“I was on the left wing and the ball was in the other team’s half,” Paige said. “One of my teammates put it through and I just sprinted so hard to get on the end of it.
“I took a touch around the goalkeeper and scored. The feeling was amazing.”
Two minutes later she added another goal, like she’d never been away, but in reality her recovery is very much a work in progress.
A groin strain held her back after those goals, and each week her time has been limited in games, though getting longer and longer.
In July, a year after she had to miss out on attending the National Youth Championships, she was picked for this year’s event and played 25 minutes every day.
“To this day she’s having physio for some ongoing issues, but I’m just grateful that we still have her with us,” said Susie, who had to take three months off work to support Paige through her early rehab.
“Seeing her so determined, going through all those rehab sessions — I knew she had it in her, but she had to go through the early sessions to realise that she would get there and she would be OK. It was just going to take some time.”
Newcastle Jets have supported her throughout, from her team coach visiting in hospital to technical director Craig Deans arranging for W-League players to spend time with Paige at home to keep her spirits high.
Unbelievably she has taken to riding again with her father, and while her dream is one day to play in the W-League, more immediately her focus is on keeping her place in the Jets development squad as she moves up an age group.
“Not being able to play for 12 months, it feels so good to be playing again and scoring goals,” she said. “I’ll keep training, keep working hard, keep my fitness up.
“When I’m out there, I feel I’m doing really well.
