“I heard them saying to Gary that they didn’t know if I was going to pull through. He just replied, ‘Yes, she is. You’re going to fix her and she’s going to come home’.”
In September 2022 we responded to 35 road traffic collisions. One of those was 53-year-old Cathy Wallace.
Cathy and her partner, Gary, are riding their motorbikes from their home in Oxford to Portsmouth for a motorbike rally.
A biker when she was a teenager, Cathy returned to the saddle in 2021 – and has found a new lease of life among the biker community that holds many of her close friends.
Cathy doesn’t know if she will ever get back on her motorbike again.
“Life can change in the blink of an eye”
As she’s riding on the A272 near Owslebury, Winchester, bright car lights behind Cathy catch her eye. The next thing she knows, she is skidding along the hard, drizzly ground. As her bike glides towards the side of the A-road, Cathy slides into the middle of the other side of the road.
An oncoming van, with no other option, drives over Cathy and traps her underneath the middle of the vehicle. Her torso is crushed. Her breath is disappearing.
The driver of another car pulls up alongside Gary to tell him what has happened. He hastily turns his bike around to look for Cathy. When he reaches her, Cathy is still trapped. She is grasping for breath and can no longer feel her legs.
The passenger of the van dials 999 while a nearby lorry driver hoists the vehicle up with a pallet truck. Gary grabs Cathy from under her arms and pulls her out from under the van.
Just 26 minutes after the 999 call, both our Critical Care Team and Critical Care Paramedic arrive on scene by helicopter and car. The team land the aircraft in a nearby field and receive a handover from their ambulance colleagues.
Cathy is conscious and talking but showing some signs of confusion. Her chest is very painful and her breathing rate is rapid. The team cannot properly assess Cathy’s pelvis, because of the environment they’re working in, so they cannot rule out a pelvic injury.
To help with her pain, Cathy is given a series of medicines before being extricated to a road ambulance on a scoop stretcher. A pelvic binder is also applied to protect her potentially broken pelvis.
Life-threatening injuries
Cathy had to communicate blinking at an alphabet board.
As they leave the scene and head for hospital, however, Cathy’s blood pressure drops dangerously low, and her heart rate continues to rise. A ‘Code Red’ is declared and they begin an emergency blood transfusion in the back of the ambulance.
Among her catalogue of injuries, Cathy has a punctured lung, an open book pelvic fracture, cervical fracture (broken neck), multiple fractures to her collar bone, multiple broken ribs, small breaks to parts of her spine and a broken left ankle.
“I had this horrible feeling of slipping away,” says Cathy.
“I remember thinking, ‘I’m not ready to die yet; I’ve got reasons to be here’. I was absolutely terrified.”
“I could hear voices, which made me think I must still be alive. I heard them say to Gary that they didn’t know if I was going to pull through. He just replied, ‘Yes, she is. You’re going to fix her and she’s going to come home’.”
After months of surgery and recovery, Cathy is eventually transferred to the Centre of Enablement at the John Radcliffe Hospital, where she learns to walk again, regain full range of mobility in her left arm and write with her right hand again.
“There was a lot of determination to get through the pain and get the movement back,” she says.
“There were ups and downs. You just think, ‘Why me?’, and you want your life to go back to how it was.”
While Cathy has battled with PTSD and bouts of fatigue, she ticked off a bucket list moment by going to the Isle of Man TT (as a spectator), just five weeks after spinal surgery.
Thanks to the life-saving care on scene and in hospital, Cathy and Gary also tied the knot in June 2025.
“I am just so grateful to have been given the gift of life,” she says.
“I owe it all to the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Air Ambulance. I wouldn’t be alive without them.”
Since Cathy’s incident, our doctors, dispatchers, pilots and paramedics have responded to a further 855* road traffic collisions.
Donate today and help us be there for patients like Cathy.
*From September 2022 – June 2025.
