Coming to terms with what happened

I know this blog is supposed to be about Pixie and her adventure to Scotland, but after coming close to death in a boat crash, I thought you'd like to know what happened.

It's not been an easy week physically or mentally.

Physically my back, which the staff of Marseille Hospital thought was fractured until an MRI scan proved otherwise, is improving I'm glad to say. It's badly bruised, but I'm gaining mobility, walking is still a slow arduous process, as are many everyday things from getting into bed to sitting down. Thankfully Kirsty has been helping me as much as possible. The bumps on my head have gone down, taking with them the pain that was there, there is now just a dull throb, rather than a constant sharp pain.

Mentally, it's been tougher than I thought. Coming to terms with the idea that I could have so easily have died, and thinking during the incident that I had, has been very emotional. For a while my mind was in a constant loop re-living the experience, trying to work out what happened, seeing the hull of the boat, feeling the jolt, and feeling the impact to my back and head, they felt as real as they did at the time. The sound of the water slapping on the hull as the boat got closer, the noise of the collision, it all seemed very real, even in the front room of our home in London.

Sitting down and working out what actually happened and putting my thoughts into words has helped a lot. Seeing the photos I took before and after the collision have also helped me work things out in my head what actually happened while I was a passenger, with no control over events.

So what did happen? This is what I remember....

I saw the Monte Carlo was making a run towards us, so started shooting her, I wasn't controlling the shoot, someone on the flybridge was. I shot 7 frames in the space of 3 seconds, I noticed she was still heading straight for us. She was at full speed or near enough, and had been filling the height of the frame as I had been zooming out. When my lens reached it stops on the zoom with a bump, The Monte Carlo 42 was now bigger than the frame, heading straight for us. I realised something was wrong, I thought the driver, who wasn’t someone from Beneteau or IPC, had mis-judged the turn, and we were going to get a face full of water. Not great, but better than being hit by a boat, so I turned to protect my camera from the wake, as I was doing this, the photographer in the cockpit with me shouted “He’s going to hit us!”. The rush of water slapping under the hull was getting louder. As I glanced over my left shoulder, all I saw the bow of the boat. The white and blue-grey of the hull and two cockpit drains at eye level.

Before I could move or think there was a tremendous crunch. The cockpit jarred violently, something hard hit my head. I felt a sharp pain in my back. I shouted. I was in water. Everything went dark. “I’m dead” I thought “this is it”

But I was still thinking, dead people don’t think, or do they? “I don’t want to die” is the next thing I can remember thinking. I could hear and feel water around me, on my face, in my ears. Was I in the water? What happened to the boats? I didn’t know. After what felt like a second or two, the darkness faded, I was under water but could see white and azure blue with bubbles, small, tiny, fizzy bubbles in front of my eyes. I blinked and I could see the sky. I’m ALIVE! I was actually alive!

I was standing on the right hand side of this boat...roughly behind where is says "Fisher". The gash on the right is thought to have come from the bow of the Monte Carlo 42, the gash on the left is thought to come from one of it's propellers

The damage to the flybridge must have come from the guard rails of the Monte Carlo 42, (below top) and I got up from where the glass door was resting (below bottom) It was moved there after the crash to get inside the boat.

It's alarmingly easy to see that during the crash the Monte Carlo must have passed over at least part of me. That's what's really shaken me up. I walked away from it. How? I'll never know.

Kirsty, family, friends, colleagues current and ex, and even strangers on the internet forums have been a great support...Thanks everyone

There is a translated account of events from the boat that hit us here