When you’ve had the kind of fight on your hands that Susan Couch has been battling for 10 years, it’s the little words of support that can make all the difference. And for the sole survivor of the infamous RSA shooting in 2001, one of the most helpful voices over the decade has been that of the woman who saved her life.
Susan was 37 and a solo mother of one when her life changed forever on December 8, 2001. She was working part time as an accountant for the Mt Wellington-Panmure RSA in Auckland when former employee William Bell robbed the club, shooting three people.
Club president William Absolum, club member Wayne Johnson and cleaner Mary Hobson were killed in the raid. Susan was beaten so badly that she lost almost 80% of the blood in her body and wasn’t expected to survive. Paramedic Pam Neale was one of the first people to arrive on the scene and she thought Susan was dead.
“It was a horrific experience. Ten years on, it’s still as vivid in my mind. It knocked my socks off.” While her paramedic partner attended to those killed, Pam stayed with Susan.
“I think I made a difference between whether she lived or died,” Pam says. “She was in a pool of blood. If we hadn’t got to her when we did, she wouldn’t have survived.”
Pam was determined to get Susan to pull through and believes Susan could hear her encouragement. “I was screaming at her to keep fighting.”It took a long time for her to get any response, but when Pam tried to re-check her pupils, Susan pulled her head away.
“That inspired me to keep working hard on her,” Pam says. The experience created a bond for the women that they have maintained over the past decade. Pam visited Susan in hospital right after the attack, but she was unable to talk. Then they weren’t allowed to communicate for a year because of the trial.
Pam mentioned to her daughter that she would like to catch up with Susan. Her daughter got in touch with the police officer running the case, who contacted Susan. The women met face to face on a TV programme and have kept in contact ever since. Susan has even visited Pam in her new home town of Brisbane.
Life is a struggle for Susan, whose severe brain injuries mean she can’t hold down a job. She is heading back to court in the New Year – the next step in her fight with the Department of Corrections over a $500,000 civil action.
Susan says she sometimes feels a bit cut off from the real world and treasures her contact with Pam. “I live my life with just school, gym and the supermarket.” She doesn’t have many friends from before the attack.
“It’s like those mental health ads,” she explains. “People go on with their lives.” The messages Pam sends her keep her going.
“She’s a lovely lady. She has inspiring, encouraging things to say.”
Susan says she and Pam have a bond because Pam is the only person who knows what she was like when she was found. Pam is no longer working as a paramedic, due to an accident, and now works in palliative care.
Susan says, while that is a loss to the ambulance service, Pam will be perfect in her new role.
“I think she’s a wonderful person to be helping people go to their final destination.
“She’s a lovely soul.”
Susan says most of the help she’s had over the past decade has been from people she has met since the attack, but she spent her birthday this month with an old friend, before having dinner with her mother and son, Jackson, who’s now 12.
Pam says she and Susan will always be friends. “We were meant to meet. Every time I feel sorry for myself, I think of Susan and pull my head in. “She’s just amazing. She’s fought so long and so hard. I think of her every day.”
Susan hopes to be able to visit Pam again soon. “Should I win Lotto, I will definitely visit.”
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