Twenty years ago, Terry Vo made international headlines after a freak accident at a friend’s home. His positive outlook, despite the horrific injuries, captured hearts and since then, Terry’s chased all his dreams. “Nothing has stopped me from living a normal life,” he tells Woman’s Day.
Terry was just 10 when his life changed forever at a friend’s birthday party in 2005. He was playing basketball in the driveway when he went for a slam dunk.
The hoop had been fixed to a brick wall above the garage and as Terry held onto the ring, he heard “cracks” and then the wall gave way.
After he fell back onto the concrete, the wall collapsed on him and the edges of falling bricks sliced through three of his limbs – his two forearms and his left foot, which was severed above the ankle.
“The next thing I knew was my arms were gone,” recalls Terry from his home in Perth’s northern suburbs.
“I could still feel my foot – they call it phantom pain – and I didn’t realise I’d lost it. I tried to stand up and fell over. Then all my friends ran inside to get the adults.”
Terry says that his mum Trang fainted multiple times at the sight of her severely injured boy.
“I felt no pain,” remembers Terry. “But what I was seeing was so unbelievable, I thought, ‘This must be a dream.’”
In a historic and painstaking operation at Perth’s Princess Margaret Hospital – now the Perth Children’s Hospital – three surgery teams reattached Terry’s limbs. He then remained in intensive care for six months.
Just nine days later, problems emerged with Terry’s reattached foot and surgeons had to amputate it. But to this day, Terry’s hands are fully functioning and he uses a prosthetic leg.
“I don’t remember what it was like without it,” says the 30-year-old, who is a father of two with partner Monika.
“My kids are the best thing about my life,” he says of his sons, Kaison, nearly four, and Riley, three. But they come with one problem!
“Some mornings, my boys hide my leg,” he laughs. “Eventually, they bring it back to me. It’s pretty funny.”
Inspired by the work of the medical professionals who saved his limbs, Terry first had ambitions to be a doctor, studying medicine at the University of Western Australia for six years.
But he stepped away from that degree to chase a career that would give him more family time. He now runs a luxury real estate business in Perth, employing nine people.
“My friend was in real estate,” explains Terry. “I tried it out and then I fell in love with it. I wanted the freedom to organise my own time.”
Not that he has turned his back completely on the medical profession.
“The avenue’s always there,” he says. “And Monika calls me ‘the doctor’ at home – I diagnose and treat problems.”
Terry met Monika through a friend and they discovered a shared love of gaming – a hobby that got them through the Covid lockdowns. Monika’s now studying law.
Despite the major procedures he endured, including skin grafts, Terry no longer requires hospital check-ups and lives the life of any other 30-year-old.
He still plays basketball, as well as golf, tennis and badminton. And he never misses his sons’ soccer games.
“My life revolves around family and work,” he says. “I’m in a position where my career is growing, and I have a family and my own business.”
It’s a life that his mum and dad, Vietnam refugees Trang and Tam, who run two lunch bars in Perth, take much pride from, two decades after they endured an unthinkable parents’ nightmare.
“Yeah, they’re pretty stoked,” says Terry. “But I’ve always been positive – I’ve always had that outlook on life.”
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