By DAVID NAGEL
CARDINIA Cricket Club life member and champion wicket-keeper Luke Turner has dismissed plenty of batsmen in his time, but it was how he stumped doctors at the Alfred Hospital recently that was clearly his most impressive effort yet.
Turner, one of the most respected and popular players in the West Gippsland Cricket Association fell from a roof at a workplace in Mordialloc, on Monday 15 April, and landed on his head, fracturing his skull in two places.
Fortunately an ambulance arrived in just three minutes and he was rushed to the Alfred where he was put into an induced coma with swelling and bleeding to the brain.
“The doctors told my family and friends that if I did wake up, and it was likely that I wouldn’t, I’d be 30 to 40 per cent of what I was,” Turner, 31, said from his home in Blind Bight last week.
“They told them that the person they saw wouldn’t be the same. He’ll be a different person if he wakes up.”
Turner confounded the doctors, and conventional wisdom, by waking the following Monday, and after initial confusion, remarkably, showed little of the signs that were expected. Most of the time, people who wake from such injury have memory loss and the chances are high that they won’t be able to walk or talk again.
Turner might not have felt it at the time … but he was lucky.
“I said to the nurse ‘what happened’, and she said ‘you fell off a roof’ and I said ‘any chance I can get a telly’,” he said with a laugh.
“The telly didn’t work, so she got a radio and I told her to put it on Triple JJJ. She said I don’t know that station so I told her it was 107.5. She swung around and said ‘that’s unreal, you’re normal’.”
Turner was moved from the I.C.U. to another ward and was in hospital for a total of three-and-a-half-weeks, undergoing intensive rehab along the way. A constant through that time what his sister, Sarah, and his girlfriend, Kim, who both took time off work to be by his side.
Turner’s current status is that he is still recovering at home, a piece of his skull – about a quarter of the size of a football that he used to kick around for the Tooradin-Dalmore Football Club – is still missing, the area protected by a special helmet, and he needs a constant companion.
An MRI scan and a visit to the doctor today, (Wednesday 19), will give him a clearer picture of when he can get his skull reconnected and he can start the long road back to living a normal life.
Turner wanted to thank so many people for their unbelievable support.
“Look, I’m close to my Mum and Dad (Trish and Garry) and my sister and it’s just scary to think what I’ve put my family through,” he said.
“My friends from the cricket and footy clubs have been very supportive and the WGCA and other clubs have also been great. I just want to thank them all for their support. I caught a glimpse of the messages on Facebook and it made me tear-up to be honest.”
Some of Turner’s friends, including Cardinia team-mate Ben Darose and his wife Jayne, have started up the Luke Turner Foundation, with the aim of receiving donations and organising fundraisers to help with the ongoing costs for the family.
To keep up with upcoming events or to make a donation search Luke Turner Foundation on Facebook.
