‘I’m going to fight’: How Dawn Fraser survived toughest battle yet
Staring death in the face the same way she stared down her opponents when she was winning Olympic gold medals for Australia in the pool, Dawn Fraser’s fighting spirit has pulled her through life’s toughest battle.
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Staring death in the face the same way she stared down her opponents when she was winning Olympic gold medals for Australia in the pool, Dawn Fraser’s fighting spirit has pulled her through life’s toughest battle.
Told by doctors that she might die on the operating table after suffering horrific injuries in a fall at her Queensland home last week, Our Dawn didn’t flinch for a second.
As she was being wheeled into the operating theatre for an emergency surgery that doctors feared could kill her, the 87-year-old living legend just smiled and did what she’s always done.
“The last word she said to me before she went into the operation was ‘I’m going to fight’,” Fraser’s daughter Dawn Lorraine said.
“And I said to her: ‘you fight mum, you make sure you fight’. And that’s what she did.”
An Australian sporting icon who won four Olympic gold medals in the 1950s and 1960s, Fraser did survive the emergency hip operation she underwent in Queensland last Thursday, but it was touch and go.
Her busted hip wasn’t the only problem. She also broke four ribs when she tripped and fell face first onto a concrete path at the front of her Noosa home, before being rushed by ambulance to Sunshine Coast University Hospital.
In severe pain and needing to go under the knife straight away, the doctors were worried about how she would cope with the major surgery.
So they asked the heartbreaking question no family member ever wants to hear.
“Mum was on the loudspeaker because it was emergency surgery and I’d spoken to the doctor but the anaesthetist said: ‘if something happens, do you want me to resuscitate her?“ Fraser’s daughter said.
“And I said ‘Yes. Are you serious? Yes. This is not just some 87 year old.
“This is my mother who will fight, who will make sure she comes out of this operation.
“And he said ‘well, you know she mightn’t pull through because it’s such a dangerous operation.”
The surgery was a success but Fraser still isn’t out of the woods just yet.
She spent the next four days in intensive care, and remains in hospital undergoing rehabilitation with no indication yet on when she might be released.
It’s been a harrowing time for her tight-knit family but in the first few moments she regained consciousness, Fraser gave them a message of reassurance that lifted their spirits.
“She was pretty out of it. She told me she was tired and needed to get some sleep now but said ‘I feel fine and see I told you I’d fight,” her daughter said.
“I’ve seen her get through harder challenges than this so I know she’ll be fine but it was horrible.
“It was tough, especially when in the back of my head I’m thinking she’s not gonna survive this because it’s every child’s worst fear to have to bury their mother or father.”
Now out of intensive care and the star patient in the hospital ward she’s recovering in, Fraser has already started walking again, but with a warning from doctors to take it easy.
She’s also been inundated with messages of support from all around the world, from the rich and famous, to everyday Aussies who idolise our original and eternal golden girl.
“I can’t tell you how much that’s meant to us all,” her daughter Dawn Lorraine said.
“We’ve had messages from people like John Singleton and Gina Rinehart and Lindsay Fox, but also so many people that I don’t know, but Mum coached them back in the days in Botany.
“The good thing is Mum’s getting there. She’s feeling better and said she isn’t in any pain.
“The doctors are happy with her but keep telling her to take it easy but she’s not like a normal 87 year old.”
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Originally published as ‘I’m going to fight’: How Dawn Fraser survived toughest battle yet
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