“It was the day she should have died. In 25 years of nursing, I have never seen a child survive injuries like that.”
This was said by nurse Shirley Nogambula as she recalled the day that three-year-old Thimna Cushe had been brought to Dora Nginza Hospital after she wandered into the road in KwaNobuhle and was hit by a Kombi.
The little girl was scalped, her liver and spleen were ruptured, her leg was broken and her buttocks so badly injured that a burn specialist was called to help.
But survive she did.
And on Monday, about three weeks after she was discharged from hospital, Thimna was all smiles.
Thimna wandered into the road on April 18 and suffered poly-trauma – “that means a lot of injuries,” Nogambula said.
“I did not think she was going to make it.”
Despite the prognosis, Thimna pulled through.
She lay on her stomach for two weeks, unable to move.
The doctors and nurses at the hospital arranged a team of specialists, including paediatric surgeon Dr Itayi Simango, surgeons, burns specialists, dieticians and occupational therapists, to help “their fighter”.
“And then she became quiet,” Nogambula said.
“She didn’t want to eat. Her injuries were so bad she had to have a colostomy bag.
“We saw her watch the other children in the ward who could walk, but she didn’t say a word. She didn’t even cry.”
At that stage, Thimna was also being tube-fed.
“We would pray and sing to her,” Nogambula said.
To the relief of her hospital “family”, Timtim – as they called her – began fighting to live again.
“She touched all of us. We never had a child with such trauma survive,” the nurse said emotionally.
“We saw a miracle in her. “If she wanted the light on a bit longer, we complied.
“Whoever she chose that day would hold her until she fell asleep.”
It took a while for Thimna to heal enough to be able to sit.
“If I was doing charts, she would say ‘bring a chair and sit here with me’.
“I would give her paper and a pen and she would do her own roll call,” Nogambula said.
“We soon realised she was a highly intelligent child.
“Through everything, God saved her brain.”
She said the highlight of Thimna’s months of treatment and recovery was when she took her first steps.
“I came on duty for the night shift and was still busy signing in when Timtim called me,” Nogambula said.
“She said, ‘Mama, can I come to you?’
“I said yes because I thought she still couldn’t walk.
“Then I saw her in the passage. I shouted ‘Halleluja. Praise be to God’. I was so happy.
“I have been a nurse since 1993 and I have never seen anybody surviving injuries like those.”
Nogambula said there had also been lighter moments.
“She would see the physiotherapist and call me: ‘Chase Bhuti away Mama’, she would say.
“The day she left the hospital, she told us: ‘Don’t worry, mothers. I will come back again to visit’.”
Physiotherapist Ashwin Jacobs said he had promised Thimna, when he first saw in the intensive care unit, that he would ensure she was out of hospital before year-end.
“I knew she would be with us for a long time,” Jacobs said.
“She refused to eat for two to three months.
“She had such extensive injuries that her body needed two or three times the normal nutrition.”
To get her to eat, the team would give her anything she wanted.
“It started with just a bit of water. Then yogurt or a banana,” Jacobs said. “At one stage, she only wanted to eat boiled eggs – we made a lot of boiled eggs for her,” Jacobs said, laughing.
On Thimna’s third birthday, she returned from physiotherapy to a party in the ward.
“She didn’t associate the hospital with trauma anymore,” Jacobs said.
He first had to teach her to sit again and to feed herself and then stand, before a wheelchair was introduced.
“When we did physio, I had to distract her with videos of Barney [the purple dinosaur] on my phone or bribe her with chips and toys.
“That girl loves her Barney,” he said, chuckling.
She eventually could not wait for Jacobs to fetch her for physiotherapy.
“She would tell the other children in the ward, ‘I am going to town’, and wave. “She is quite the little diva.” Jacobs said when Thimna walked for the first time, the whole ward formed a guard of honour. Thimna’s greataunt, Nondedwa Valencia Torenaar, 56, who took Thimna in after she was released from hospital, said the first time she saw the little girl she was almost too afraid to enter the ward as her injuries were so severe.
“I am so thankful to all the doctors, nurses and physiotherapists. She would have died if not for them.
“Now, instead, she talks about the wonderful time she had in the hospital.”