By Amanda Gillies
A Hamilton constable has returned to work 15 months after being badly injured while on duty.
In November 2010, he was in his parked car when a 16-year-old in a stolen vehicle deliberately rammed him.
The road to recovery has been a slow one for Constable Myles O’Donnell.
With a metal rod, four screws and 14 months rehab behind him he is now back in uniform and behind the wheel.
He was nervous but says it is just like riding a bike, “all coming back to me now”.
“I can remember the car actually coming through the door, the front of the car through my driver’s door.
“I shouldn't really be here. That's what the ambulance driver told me, ‘you shouldn't be here’.”
His leg was broken in four places and he was operated on for nearly five hours, in the Intensive Care Unit for 12 days and a whole year of intensive physiotherapy.
He had a severe limp and put on weight.
“[It was] pretty stressful, my partner said it was stressful. I couldn't do anything she had to do everything.”
But the cost was not just physical and emotional.
“So far over $100,000 [has been spent on] physio and surgeries, [the] car was written off - that's $50,000 and replacement staff.”
Every year the social cost of car crashes in New Zealand is around $3.5 billion. This includes medical, legal and property damage costs plus the loss of quality life.
Waikato road policing manager Inspector Leo Tooman wonders if it had happened to someone who is self-employed.
“How do they survive? They've lost their income, they can't work. Our officer is a drain on our resources; the community is missing out as well,” he says.
For Mr O’Donnell it is not over.
“I kept thinking on the open road that cars were coming across at me.’
The teenager who hit him got time, but just six months.
3 News