A toddler who suffered a broken spine in a horror crash has defied all expectations and taken her first steps three months later.
Alice was just 18 months old when she was involved in a collision in Merthyr. Her mum, Magda Polinska, was also seriously injured in the crash.
Alice was in the back seat with her three-year-old sister, Maya, when the crash happened and doctors feared Alice would never wake up again, let alone walk.
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Magda was able to get out of the car and take both children with her after the smash. The distraught mum, who remembers very little of the aftermath, could only watch both her children being taken away by ambulance and the agonising wait of not knowing if they would be okay.
Alice was taken to the paediatric intensive care unit at the Children's Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. Alice was immediately sedated and put in halo traction to keep her completely still. She'd broken her spine between the first and second vertebrae in her neck and her family were warned that if she were to survive there was every chance that Alice would be left permanently paralysed.
But this week, after more than 12 weeks of gruelling treatment, Alice took her first steps unaided after her halo traction and tracheostomy were removed. With just her mum's hand to hold on to and the encouragement of the hospital's therapy dog, little Alice's smile said it all as she took her first unsteady steps.
Dressed in cute purple pyjamas, Alice's big brown eyes shone from beneath a shock of curly hair previously masked by the halo, oblivious to just how remarkable her recovery has been. Magda was initially told that the instances of such a small child incurring and surviving such an injury where so rare that they would have difficulty finding a halo small enough to fit.
Magda walked away from the crash with just facial injuries, a bruised hip and a broken wrist in the smash while older sister Maya had bruising and a broken arm.
Alice's injuries were much more serious and it was touch and go for a while, with life-threatening bruising around Alice's spinal cord and test results showing the spinal injury had caused damage to the left side of Alice’s body and there was no knowing at that point whether it would be permanent. Magda faced the very real chance that her daughter would be left permanently disabled or that she could even lose her completely.
Alice was put into halo traction a few days after the crash and then, on December 16, she was fitted with a tracheostomy as she was still unable to breathe for herself. But despite the halo, the break in Alice’s spine was so unstable that even the smallest movement was disrupting the healing process. The only option open to the surgical team was to perform surgery to insert rods in Alice’s back.
Signing the consent form felt like being in a nightmare, said Magda: “They had told my husband and I that the operation was extremely risky but we knew that if Alice was to have any hope at all of a normal life, this was the only option.
"The list the surgeon had written of the awful things that could happen was so long that it almost went off the page. By signing that piece of paper we were giving our consent to an operation that our daughter might never come back from. It is by far the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life."
Thankfully, the operation was a success and by Christmas Alice's sedation was reduced and she began to wake up.
It was weeks before Magda could hug her daughter and physio, speech and language therapists had to help Alice relearn how to communicate with her mum. They recorded the word ‘Mama’ on a big red button that Alice learnt to tap for her mother’s attention. The device called a Big Mac also proved to be good exercise for the left arm that her mum feared at one point she would never move again.
Magda added: "It’s been the worst three months of our family’s life, particularly as we’ve had to spend so much time apart at a time when all we want to do is be together. But there have been so many miracles too. We’ve heard so many times how lucky we all were to be alive after an accident like that and even more so that Alice survived such a terrible spinal injury. Then to have this wonderful hospital with so many specialisms to care for Alice feels like a gift.
"I was so terrified that Alice would be paralysed when this first happened, but the physio team came every day, building both my confidence and Alice’s until she was able to sit and even stand again. Now you can’t even tell the difference between her right side and her left. We’re so thankful to them all for what they have done."
Alice was treated at the Noah's Ark Children's Hospital which receives support from the Noah’s Ark Charity for things like a brand new early mobility programme on PCCU that the physio team used to help get Alice moving again. Donations also funded the specialist armchair where Alice and her mum had their first cuddle and even a little birthday celebration for three-year-old sister Maya who hadn’t been able to see her little sister for weeks.
* A 39-year-old man from the Monmouthshire area was arrested on suspicion of causing serious injury by dangerous driving, driving a vehicle whilst unfit through drugs and possession of a class C controlled drug. He has since been released under investigation
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