Long road to recovery for Jess
IT WAS a year ago this month that 25-year-old Bundaberg woman Jess Worthington suffered horrific brain damage when she was thrown 30m from her motorbike during a girls' day out riding.
From the moment she hit the pothole at Dallarnil, on the Isis Hwy, her life has not been the same - and it never will be again.
It has been a long, hard road for Miss Worthington and her mother, Linda, who has not received any support from health or government agencies to take care of her daughter, who needs constant care.
After the horrific crash, Miss Worthington was airlifted to Brisbane, where she spent 12 days in an induced coma with a broken neck and brain damage, and returned home from hospital nine months later.
"She had to be taught to breathe on her own," Ms Worthington said.
"She couldn't even move her eyes. Everything had to be taught to her again."
And while Mrs Worthington was forced to shut down her CBD business, Wicked Wardrobe, for several months to care for her daughter, she has been forced to go it alone in terms of caring for and financially supporting her daughter.
"There's no government funding," she said.
"There's nothing for her."
Despite the lack of help, Mrs Worthington refuses to let her daughter's recovery lapse so she is forced to pay hundreds of dollars each week for physio and speech therapy.
"If I don't, she goes backwards and I'm not going to let that happen," she said.
Jess can now talk and walk, but not at the level she could before the crash.
"I don't think she's ever going to walk properly or function properly again," Mrs Worthington said.
"She's got all her marbles, but they're just in the wrong place and a bit slow."
The mother said Jess, who was a panel beater before her crash, had lost her short-term memory, meaning she could not be left alone in case she forgot where she was or what she was doing.
"You have to explain to her she had a motorbike accident," Mrs Worthington said.
The pair returned to the scene of the smash on the anniversary on the weekend of February 11-12.
"Jess found it really beneficial to understand what actually happened," the mum said.
Mrs Worthington said, above all, she wanted people to understand brain damage and what it meant for victims.
"She's lost all her friends - it's not like the movies," she said.
