one estranged couple discovered that, when it comes to healing, all you need is love
Ray Burgess and his wife Angela were barely talking and heading for a divorce when he was suddenly left in a coma after a train smash. But it was her voice – the last thing he wanted to hear – before the accident that miraculously brought him back from the brink of death.
“I visited him in hospital, even though I had no idea whether he wanted me there,” says Angela (52), who was broken-hearted when Ray asked for a separation after 16 years of marriage. “I was thinking ‘Does he want me here, does he not want me here? Am I making him better?’ I was really confused. I just wanted to make sure he was okay, so I went to his bedside and told him to fight for his life.”
Although they’d been living apart for three months by then, Angela’s voice was the only thing that was able to break through and reach Ray as he lay in a coma. And it happened just as his doctors were warning the family that hope was fading.
“I saw Angela in my mind, as if she was a vision, and I heard her saying, ‘Don’t die, Ray, be strong.’ If she hadn’t come to visit me when she did, I know I wouldn’t have made it,” says Ray.
Ray’s mother Elmer agrees. She says Angela’s arrival at the hospital marked the turning point for her desperately ill son.
“We would have lost him,” Elmer says. “He was not recovering. If she hadn’t come to visit and spoken to him, I’m sure he would have died.”
At the time the accident happened, Aucklander Ray (49) was working as a courier and had stopped his van at a railway crossing. He was just 20cm too close to the passing train. His van was caught by the train and dragged along the railway tracks until it crashed into a ditch.
Ray suffered horrific internal injuries and burns from the hot oil that leaked from the wrecked vehicle. It took eight men to free him from the mangled metal and, fighting for his life, he was airlifted to hospital by the Westpac Rescue Helicopter.
Angela admits she was shocked by Ray’s terrible injuries when she first saw him in the hospital. “I was told that he’d been in an accident and wasn’t too good. I didn’t know what to expect when I arrived at the hospital,” says Angela. “It was hard to see him in that state.”
When Ray heard Angela’s voice, he defied the odds and started to come out of his coma, opening his eyes for the first time in two weeks. A week later, he had fully regained consciousness but was still unable to walk or talk.
Angela visited Ray in hospital every day, not realising how she had helped him because he couldn’t tell her. “I still wasn’t sure if I was welcome,” she says. But Elmer could tell Ray was happy to see his estranged wife because he always looked at the clock when it was close to the time Angela usually visited.
one day, Angela received the message from Ray that he still loved her. “He gave me a kiss one night and ever since then I knew it was going to be okay,” she says.
The couple have never spoken in depth about their miracle reconciliation after three months apart. Angela has simply continued to stay by Ray’s side during his recovery at his mother’s house in West Auckland. Now Ray can admit that he never really let go of his marriage.
“I always drove past her place,” says Ray, who is still receiving physiotherapy for his injuries and also needs to have $15,000 worth of dental surgery. But if the accident had never happened, Angela believes they would still be apart.
“The pair of them are pretty stubborn,” adds Elmer with a smile.
Ray and Angela are grateful to the Westpac Rescue Helicopter for helping him at the scene and taking him to hospital so promptly. “If it wasn’t for their quick thinking, we would have lost him,” Angela says.
Ray says the experience has taught him to appreciate what he’s got and to make the most of every day. And along with a second chance at their relationship, Ray has learned to walk again, thanks to Angela’s unfailing love and support.
“I used to think I was invincible,” he admits. “But now I know I need to make the most of the life and the love that I have.”
