Category Archives: headline

headline

'The way he grabbed my hand I knew'

New South Wales mother Shayleen Frail wants drivers to imagine the unimaginable grief she woke up to in hospital: a broken leg and her two little boys dead.

"I just remember walking and seeing this idiot losing control and it just come up and I remember getting skittled," she recalls at her Wellington home.

When she woke up in Westmead hospital, she immediately asked her uncle what had happened to her sons Shane, seven, and Sheldon, six.

"Just the way he grabbed my hand I knew … Shane and Sheldon couldn't be saved. I remember begging them to please just let me go. I didn't want to wake up, I wanted to be with them."

Brothers Shane and Sheldon.

Ms Frail has chosen to speak about her boys' deaths in the hope it will stop drivers making stupid and dangerous, split second decisions.

"Why couldn't it be me? They were only just starting off in life mate. It's unfair, it's just unfair because someone wants to big note in front of friends."

Jacob Donn, 25, remains in custody, after he allegedly did several burnouts before ploughing into Ms Frail and her sons on the footpath on January 5.

Ms Frail, her ex-partner Joseph Shorey and their family in Wellington are now without their boys.

Grandmother Denise Frail suffered a stroke after learning of their deaths.

READ MORE: Police investigate reports of 'fake' fundraisers following Wellington crash

NSW mother Shayleen Frail.

"The boys knew how much Nan and Pop loved them," she said, stroking her daughter's arm. 

The boys had spent the past year with their father in Emerald, Queensland, but grew up in Wellington spending their afternoons in the river, at the park and playing at the Nanima Village mission. 

"They absolutely loved their culture: doing the clap sticks, doing the Koori dance," Ms Frail said, remembering a video of them dancing like snakes and goannas. 

She said her youngest, Sheldon, was born to be an entertainer. 

"Sheldon, he was just a little show-off, real centre of attention, he would uplift any party … a real little character."

Shane was destined to be an NRL player.

"Shane was a placid kid, a caring big brother and absolutely loved footy.

"Anyone who knew my boys knew they loved football."

"I could just imagine this was probably where everything would have started," Ms Frail said, pointing to the home they lived in and the road they used to kick to footy around on.

"They would have brought their first girlfriends back here, this was their home."

Ms Frail and her family hope the two boys will be buried together in Wellington. 

"Wellington most definitely was and still is their home, they started off their little lives here.

"They need to come home, they need to be buried on country here in wellington where they are loved, where their family is."

At the time the boys were killed, they were living with Mr Shorey and had come down from Queensland to spend the school holidays with their mother.

There has been speculation and reports Ms Frail was not headed to the local pool but to a block of units nearby to meet the driver of the vehicle.

"I wasn't there to meet Jacob Donn. I wasn't there for any reason other than to take my babies to the pool … we didn't make it there," Ms Frail said.

She says she's not afraid to be honest about her background.

"Just because I've been to jail, just because I've been an ex-user does not take anything away from me being a good mum," she said.

"It doesn't take away from the fact I love my boys and this is a tragedy."

Ms Frail has vowed to become a road safety advocate and hopes to visit schools in the hope young boys especially learn their actions can be deadly.

The boys' mother, Shayleen Frail, begins her painstaking recovery in hospital.

"When I woke up and found out I lost my boys I wanted to give up on life, but (now) I want to make them proud and if I could somehow try to save another kid from anything like this," she said.

And she hopes her message to drivers might help: 

"If you're not going to hurt yourself, you're going to hurt someone else … you just don't know who or what is going to happen: you've got to stop driving like an idiot," she said.

"Look at the ramifications of this. I lost my babies, me and Joseph are burying our babies. I lost my whole family my two babies in one instant."

headline

Australia seeking urgent advice from Norway after Pfizer vaccine deaths

The Australian government is urgently seeking advice from Norway after reports up to 30 people have died after receiving the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine.

The vaccine was rolled out to the Scandinavian nation's elderly and people in nursing homes with serious underlying diseases.

Norway's medical regulator says reports suggest common adverse reactions to mRNA vaccines, such as fever and nausea, may have contributed to a fatal outcome in some frail patients.

A health care professional prepares a Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination center in Jerusalem. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Australia has an agreement to purchase 10 million doses of the Pfizer jab.

"We're proceeding with an abundance of caution," Health Minister Greg Hunt said.

Infectious diseases specialist Associate Professor Sanjaya Senanayake told 9News the vaccine deaths could be coincidental.

"This could just be coincidental, that you have people with chronic health problems who just succumb to their chronic illnesses rather than due to the vaccine itself," Professor Senanayake said.

Aged care residents and older Australians will be vaccinated in the first phase of the rollout.

The Pfizer vaccine is expected to be approved in Australia by the end of the month, with a possible rollout in February.

"At this point there's no change, but we'll follow the medical regulator's advice," Mr Hunt said.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration says it's working with European regulators to determine whether specific warnings about risks of vaccination in the very frail elderly or terminally ill should be applied to the Pfizer vaccine.

"The TGA has full authority and full empowerment to make whatever recommendations they believe," Mr Hunt said.

headline

WA woman suffers stillbirth after clinical error

A West Australian mother has described the heartbreaking moment she found out her baby did not survive the delivery, due to a clinical mistake.

Sarah Hassan attended Bunbury's St John of God Private Hospital on December 9 to have her baby, where she was mistakenly given 100 milligrams of morphine, estimated to be 10-times the prescribed dose.

As a result, she slipped into a coma and suffered from oxygen deprivation and heart failure, almost killing her in the process.

Tragically her child Zahid did not survive.

"I was dreaming of a baby for a long time, for five years. It was the worst day. It just broke my whole life," said Ms Hassan.

"The thing is I was asking myself every time, why did I take the morphine? Because of that I lost my child."

Ms Hassan's partner and the father of the child Sunny Alam said the day was unbearable.

"His body was still warm. What happened to my wife?" Mr Alam said.

"They've destroyed our family within one moment."

In a statement St John of God Bunbury said a "serious clinical error" may have taken place, with current information leading medical investigators to believe it was caused by human error.

"St John of God Bunbury Hospital has confirmed that a serious incident involving a patient occurred at the hospital on 10 December, resulting in a stillbirth," the hospital said.

"The mother was transferred to a tertiary hospital and we immediately commenced an internal review to determine the cause or any contributing factors.

"The group undertaking the review commenced investigation of a possible serious clinical error."

Staff members who were involved in the incident have been stood down while an investigation is underway.

The midwife involved has had her registration suspended and another staff member involved has resigned.

"We have kept the family informed and updated throughout this process," the hospital said.

"This is a tragic occurrence. The hospital feels deeply for the family and will continue to investigate."

If you or someone you know is struggling with loss, contact Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636 or Perinatal Anxiety & Depression Australia (PANDA) 1300 726 306 (Mon to Sat, 9am – 7.30pm)

headline

'It's heartbreaking still': Bushfire survivors reflect one year on

It was January 4 last year when the Black Summer bushfires reached the doorstep of Ella Bandur childhood home in Batemans Bay.

When she looks outside a year later, the blackened earth is covered in a layer of green following months of rain.

READ MORE: Before and after: One year since horrific Black Summer bushfires

But while the fire is long gone, the impacts are still very much being felt and after an unprecedented year of disaster, the community is struggling to get back on its feet.

The Currowan fire had been threatening Batemans Bay since November 2019 but on New Year's Eve, conditions took a turn for the worst.

Multiple fire fronts began closing in, turning the sky red and forcing thousands to flee their homes.

Ella Bandur's mum, Marianne Bandur, works as a nurse at the local hospital and while the town evacuated, she spent the day moving patients to safety.

READ MORE: Australian bushfires one year on: How Black Summer of death and destruction erupted

"It was a quite a traumatic day, we were evacuating patients from end of the hospital to another just so we had them all in one area in case the fire brigade had to defend the hospital," Ms Bandur told nine.com.au.

"Meanwhile I was getting texts from neighbours saying our house was gone, so it was a very emotional day."

Unable to return home, Ms Bandur spent a sleepless night staying with family.

"The whole summer I had been prepared to lose our home because so many others had and we live in the bush so that made me think we would and I thought I'd come to terms with that but it wasn't until it was actually happening when I fell to pieces a little bit," she said.

When she arrived back at her property the next day, she found her home still standing – something she still regards as a miracle.

Due to a change in the wind and efforts from fire crews, the Bandur family were able to return to home, but the threat remained.

"Even after those few really horrific days, the threat was still there so people were still really on edge … a few days later there was a fire in a vacant block at the end of our road and a few days after that a fire reached our neighbour's back yard," Ella Bandur said.

"Everyone was trying to recover but we kept having blackouts so our freezer would defrost, so Mum would have to go back out and buy everything again."

The Currowan Fire burnt for 74 days across 499,621 hectares and destroyed 312 homes.

Less than two months later, a second disaster hit – the COVID-19 pandemic – forcing a community barely standing into lockdown.

"A lot of the businesses were really affected. We really rely on summer to get us through those winter months," Ella Bandur said.

"During summer our population triples and everyone complains about it but we really need it because then on those winter days and you've got no one the summer money gets everyone through but we didn't have that at all this year."

But just as the regrowth is a sign of new beginnings, it serves as a reminder of how far there is to go before life returns to normal.

"It's felt like a really long year. It's been a total rollercoaster of emotions," Ms Bandur said.

"It's lovely seeing the rain and seeing the green but even still, you drive through areas that were really badly affected and I get really sad seeing that because there's so much bush that hasn't regenerated and it wont happen in one year, it'll happen in 20 or 30 and that's devastating."

"As someone who's lived here and knows what it was before, you couldn't see people's homes and now you can see through their front door because all the bush has been burnt to smithereens.

"It's still heartbreaking."

The remains of a car yard in the industrial estate at Batemans Bay.The fire in Currowan, north of Batemans Bay.

And the bush isn't the only thing trying to recover – many in in community are still struggling after having their homes and livelihoods burnt to the ground only to be hit with a once-in-a-century pandemic.

"I know there are still a lot of traumatised people here. With COVID happening, they missed out on people helping them to recover," Ms Bandur said.

"I feel for those people who really needed the support from friends and family and weren't able to get it in a time you need it most.

"It's been very difficult."

But not all the memories are bad ones, with some even sparking new traditions and helping the community heal its wounds.

This year, the Bandur family spent the anniversary of the Black Summer bushfires paying tribute to the firefighters who helped save their home.

"I remember I had this whole army of firies in our yard and I wanted to make tea but we didn't have electricity but we had gas so my neighbour brought over some water and we actually boiled it on the stove," Ms Bandur said.

"I was rummaging around in the cupboard thinking it would be nice to have a biscuit or something to offer them but we didn't have any food.

"But then I found a panettone left over from Christmas. It was all we had left.

"Everyone loved it, it lasted about five seconds.

"It just one of those funny memories I had so we decided to relive that this year and I think we'll do it in years to come."