It took just a split second for Lynette Kilmartin’s life to change forever. A successful body sculptor, Lynette had just moved to Auckland from Wellington for a new job and was out celebrating with friends when she found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As Lynette stepped out of a taxi on Ponsonby Rd during her night out, a man who had just bashed a prostitute and was speeding away from the crime scene came hurtling down that same city street.
The car smashed into Lynette (37), throwing her metres down the road, then drove off into the darkness without checking if his innocent victim had survived the high-speed impact.
Amazingly, Lynette was still alive but one shoulder and her back were broken, and one leg almost completely severed. That was eight months ago and since the horrific hit-and-run, Lynette has changed from being an active woman in peak physical condition, with a successful career working as a L’oréal area manager, to being confined to a wheelchair in her central city apartment, dependent on caregivers.
She finds herself constantly replaying the horrific scene in her mind. “He was travelling at anything from 90 to 100kmph, was on the wrong side of the road with no lights on, and he drove off,” she says, in disbelief.
The time Lynette used to spend at the gym, keeping in tip-top shape for bodysculpting contests, has now been replaced with intense physiotherapy. Her goal used to be winning trophies.
Now, having been told by doctors that she would never walk again, her goal is not only to be up on her feet, but back to competing by october this year.
The driver responsible for her injuries, is 23-year-old Prasant Nathoo, a service station attendant and provincial hockey player for the lower North Island side the Central oavericks in last year’s hockey league. He has pleaded guilty to reckless driving causing injury, and failing to stop after the crash.
He also admitted the attack on a sex worker, which he was on the run from when his car hit Lynette. He is due to be sentenced next month, when for the first time Lynette will finally come face-to-face with the man who almost killed her.
“I wouldn’t wish what I have been through on my worst enemy,” she says. “I wouldn’t even wish it on him. I’ve had two and a half months in hospital, 17 blood transfusions and five operations – with more to come.
“oy life used to be about getting up and going to the gym. The gym was my life. Now most days I have physio or specialist appointments. I can’t get away from it. Everywhere I go people ask me what happened to my leg.
“When I first saw my leg at the hospital, I screamed down the ward – they had to give me a tablet to put me out because they thought I was going to have a heart attack. I grabbed the nurse and said, ‘Get the surgeon and cut this off! I’m not having a leg like that!’
“They had removed the bones in my leg and put in titanium rods. It looked like a shark had attacked it.”For months Lynette had to sleep with her leg raised high in the air which she was able to cope with thanks to the flexibility she had achieved with her years of physical training including her former life as an aerobics instructor.
When doctors warned Lynette that she would never walk again she told them in no uncertain terms that not only would she walk, she would compete in the New Zealand Body Building Awards in october. She has even chosen the music for her on-stage moment – the theme from the movie Flashdance.
“Even if I have to do it with a walking stick, I will walk again. It’s always going to be a hoppity, funny-looking walk, but I will do it,” she vows.
Since the horrific hit and run, Lynette has made peace with her injuries – believing they are part of a grand plan to make use of her go-getting nature.
“I’ve realised this is my opportunity to go out there and speak on behalf of victims who can’t speak for themselves. I’ve met amazing, beautiful people in hospital, some who have since died, that couldn’t evenspell their own name because of terrible accidents that have happened,” she says.
If it wasn’t for a doctor travelling along Ponsonby Rd on the way to the airport, who stopped to provide emergency medical treatment, Lynette doesn’t think she would have survived.
The accident also brought her new friends. Gurmeet Sran, the taxi driver who was dropping her off and helped save her life, has become a good mate, along with his wife Akwinder and three-year-old daughter ouscaan.
Initially, Lynette says she did feel bitter towards the stranger whose actions robbed her of so much, especially when she was told that the court had allowed Nathoo to continue playing representative hockey while awaiting his hearing. But as she grew to accept her situation, Lynette says she has made a conscious decision not to dwell on what she’s lost.
“Anger and bitterness are not emotions I want to carry with me,” she says, with a smile. “I might as well get on with it.”
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