It’s a sunny, warm winter’s day when we gather for a Woman’s Day photo shoot with beloved broadcaster Susan Wood. Auckland is magic on a day like this. While the photographer does final light checks, Susan’s brown eyes sparkle as she chats away with the TVNZ stylist and make-up artist about family, friends and work. These old pals haven’t seen each other for a while and the relaxed conversation is peppered with laughter.
As the first photos are taken, Susan soaks in the sun and looks sky high.
“God, it’s a good day,” she says.
It certainly is. It’s a poignant moment for the five of us gathered with a tacit understanding we’re blessed to be here with Susan at all. Womans’ Day has done plenty of shoots with Susan over her acclaimed 30-year career in journalism, but this one – ahead of her return to television with an interview on TV One’s Q&A this week – is particularly special.
Six months ago, on the night of January 10, Susan was lying in the intensive care unit of Auckland Hospital, her life hanging in the balance. An innocent fall on the stairs at her Orakei home had led to a head injury so severe her brain was badly damaged and dangerously swollen. A neurosurgeon operated that same night, removing a sizeable chunk of her skull – about 10cm by 10cm – to release the pressure and ensure her survival. She was on life support and paralysed. A helmet akin to a rugby forward’s headgear kept the left side of her brain in place.
While Susan lay unconscious, her boys Alexander and Matthew, their father Duncan and her mother Marie Williams stayed by her side and waited for a hint she would survive.
It was 10 days before Susan regained consciousness, opening her eyes and giving the first sign of recovery. The family’s relief was indescribable, and the tears of trepidation and fear finally turned to joy and hope.
But it would be a long and slow six-month journey before Susan felt well enough to face the public, to tell her story and assure people she was OK.
And today, as she speaks exclusively to Woman’s Day, Susan says she feels fantastic.
“I know I’m lucky to be alive. I know I’ve been given a second chance at life, and I’m just so grateful,” she says sincerely.
Image: Rob Trathen
Tucked up on the couch at home with her faithful old chocolate Labrador Charlie at her feet, the journalist we’ve come to know and love is serene, happy and eager to embrace the future.
But she knows she must take things easy – she’s had a miraculous recovery by all accounts, but after a head injury, she knows how important it is to be careful for the next year.
There are massive gaps in Susan’s memory for about a six-week period around the accident – thankfully in many ways, she admits, because she loathes thinking about it and “would prefer to look forward, to be honest”.
But Susan and her family appreciate she’s lived in the public eye for much of her life and that people want to know how she is, with the very best of intentions.
“I’ve taken to giving complete strangers hugs, because they gasp and are so happy to see
I’m alright!” she laughs.
It’s Susan’s good friend and ex-husband Duncan Beck – father of their boys Alex, 24, and Matthew, 22 – who tells Woman’s Day what happened on the night of the accident.
“It was a Saturday and both boys were back in Auckland for holidays, so we were at Susan’s enjoying a get-together with friends, having a drink before Alex had to return to Berlin for his business and legal studies, and Susan was due to head off to Sydney to catch up with girlfriends on the Monday. We had a nice evening, and I went out with Alex and mutual friends, and Matthew went out with other friends,” Duncan tells.
Susan, 54, had flown her niece Madeleine, 15, up from Dunedin to stay for the weekend, and after the guys went out, they were winding down for the night. Susan showed her niece how to work the shower.
“Susan must have been cleaning up the mess the boys had made while Madeleine was in the shower. She must have been making a cup of tea – we know that because the kettle was left on the stove top and we found it still on the next day.”
Image: Rob Trathen
Emergency op
It was young Madeleine who discovered Susan unconscious at the bottom of the stairs. She immediately called the ambulance – ultimately saving her life – and the boys. Duncan says, “We got a call about midnight from Madeleine saying Susan had fallen and was injured, bleeding and unconscious. We raced home. The ambulance arrived at the same time we did and we followed it straight to hospital.”
By 1am, Susan was on the operating table. Doctors told the family that if she hadn’t been found by Madeleine so quickly, she would have died.
Susan says, “I’ve talked with Alexander and Matthew a lot, and I’m so sorry I got hurt and put my boys through that. They’re too young to see their mother like that. It was horrible. It was so tough for them. Duncan was great. It happened and I can’t go back. I can’t change that. It was just a stupid accident. And I will not be doing that again!
“My boys want me to be around until I’m 85, so I’ll try!”
While Susan can’t remember hospital, she does recall periods of her stay at ABI Rehabilitation at Ranui in West Auckland, where she was moved in mid-February five weeks after the fall. ABI is a community-based rehabilitation service for people with traumatic brain injuries.
At first, Susan slept most of the days, her body slowly healing. After the first week, she started to take small steps with a walking frame, and slowly began to regain her movement. Over the next six weeks, daily sessions with occupational and speech therapists gradually helped her recover her speech and mobility. She progressed.
After eight weeks, she returned to hospital and her skull flap was reattached, which helped speed up her recovery. Susan acknowledges how fantastic the “really nice people” were at ABI, but she was soon desperate to go home. And she realised pretty quickly the only way to do that was to get better.
“I did everything they told me I had to. I ate the right food and did all the exercises they gave me,” she says. “I tried to be a good patient, but apparently I was pretty stroppy at times!”
She had daily visits from her sons, her mum or Duncan, who moved into Susan’s after the accident for two months to be with Alex and Matthew and look after Charlie. The Beck boys were overwhelmed by and thankful for the generosity and support of friends, family and strangers who sent messages of support – and meals galore!
At ABI, they eventually asked Susan if she was ready to see friends, and her closest pals began to visit her there. Matthew came and went from Dunedin, where he’s studying business and law at Otago University. In February, Alex briefly returned to Berlin to sort out his studies and living arrangements, before coming back to Auckland to take care
of his mother when she finally came home in late March.
“Alex did have the hardest job,” says Susan, speaking proudly of her eldest son, who became her power of attorney and led key legal and medical decisions.
“He sacrificed the most and practically ran the family, and did all the tasks for a long period. I really couldn’t have done it without him.”
She had therapists visit her house regularly, but after two months, in late May, “they said they’d done all they could”.
Susan has filled her days with talking to friends and family, cleaning, gardening, mowing the lawns, watching the History Channel – and reading voraciously. She started slowly, but Duncan reckons, “She’s read her entire library!”
Says Susan, “I have a new appreciation of reading. It just got faster and faster, and now sometimes I read a paragraph and I love it, and I’ll read it again just because I like it so much.”
Image: Rob Trathen
‘I feel ready’
She’s trying to stay healthy, eating well, starting back at the gym and walking with Charlie twice most days, although she admits the walks haven’t been entirely for pleasure – she wasn’t allowed to drive for six months, which drove her mad.
“For four months, I was kind of OK with it, but by five months, I was beside myself. I just wanted to go out the door!”
In July, she finally got her driver’s licence back and is relishing her independence. “I’ve been out to lunch with friends, I whip to the supermarket, I’ve been shopping – not because I want to buy anything, but just because I can!”
She hasn’t ventured out at night yet. “I’m just being careful with myself and I don’t feel a great need to go out in the evenings.”
And she’s over the moon about her first interview for Q&A, the current affairs show she loved fronting until her accident. “I had lunch with our executive producer Maryanne Ahern, and she said we could start off by doing some interviews and see how it goes. And that’s absolutely fine by me. I’ve got no worries about returning to work – I feel ready – and as long as I’ve got a few things in my diary for the rest of the year, I’ll be fine. I’ve got a couple of MC events coming up, which I’m really looking forward to.”
Physically, you wouldn’t know anything about Susan was different, although she points
out the artificial hair on one side of her head, covering a big scar. “My hair’s a bit odd,” she laughs. “When it grows back, it’s all done.”
Amazingly, there is no ongoing therapy or medication for Susan. She believes her personality is “just the same” as before the accident, although Duncan thinks “she’s more mellow”.
“I think my outlook has changed perhaps,” she says. “I’ve thought about life a lot. My boys and friends were so good to me. I count my blessings.”
Reminded about wanting to hide under the duvet when she turned 50, Susan hoots, “Yes, that’s right! But the age thing doesn’t worry me any more. I’m not sweating the small stuff. There’s no point.
“I definitely feel differently about work. The Q&A team has been amazing to me and that’s such a big advantage. But my priorities in life are different. I have to put my boys and my health first now.”
As for those dreaded stairs? “I’m fine about them, although I always hold the rail now. I always will. I used to tear up and down those stairs, but not any more.”
As she looks out at her view of Auckland, Susan is philosophical.
“Look, I don’t know what the next year or two will hold, but I’m not worried about it. It will work itself out. I will somehow pay off my mortgage eventually.
“I will be fine. I think it’s a better attitude to have about life today. Life can be tough,” she resolves. “There are always bits of life which are tough to get through, but you’ve just got to be thankful and keep on going.”
She smiles, “Today was a really good day.”
Image: Rob Trathen
