Féile O'Sullivan's recovery has been like 'zero to 100' since farming accident
Féile O'Sullivan's legs were so damaged in the farming accident that a double amputation was the only option to save her life. Picture: Facebook
For Féile O’ Sullivan, playing boardgames with her cousins in Cork this Christmas will be another marker on her recovery from a devastating farm accident almost six months ago.
That balmy July day started like any other in the West Cork village of Allihies for the sports-mad teenager and her family.
Anyone involved in farming knows the life can be dangerous, but nobody wants to believe accidents can come to their own family.
That day ended for Féile in Cork University Hospital after an accident involving a tractor, followed by valiant efforts by local emergency workers in Allihies to keep her alive long enough for a helicopter transfer.
Her legs were so damaged a double amputation was the only option to save her life.
She also suffered serious abdominal injuries, but her mother Maureen says her progress has been “like zero to 100” since then.
“Féile has gone from not being able to breathe on her own, not being able to eat on her own, not being able to do anything by herself, not even able to lift up her hand to now she’s able to sit up by herself,” she said.
The 13-year-old can balance and reach forward by herself.
“She will be able to do that, which is phenomenal now. She can sit on her own, so considering her seated position isn’t her natural seated position, it’s great. She’s in the wheelchair and can sit out in an ordinary chair now with small supports," Maureen added.
Féile spent weeks in the intensive care unit in CHI at Crumlin Hospital before moving to a general ward.
“We made goals in the ICU, simple goals like she’d be able to hold her bottle to drink out of it, to hold her iPad, and to hold her phone to be able to talk to her friends,” her mother said.
“She’s able to do loads of other bits now, even to move herself around if she’s uncomfortable.”
As Maureen walks through corridors in Crumlin Hospital, nurses and other staff stop to ask about her daughter. They have been through so many different units for over 60 operations and other procedures that Féile is known to them all.
It has been a huge change for the girl who loved to roam on horse-back and played football with Garnish GAA and Beara Ladies, as well as gymnastics and other sports.
“She doesn’t want me to do everything for her. That’s the one thing she does get frustrated with, when I’m doing everything, when she has to ask me to do everything,” Maureen said.
Despite this, Féile remains determined to be independent.
Just a few weeks ago, the pair were able to leave Crumlin for a few hours. They used an adapted car donated through a massive online fundraiser called Stand 4 Féile.
They visited the National Rehabilitation Hospital (NRH) in Dún Laoghaire. This is where Féile will transfer when she is ready.
“We took our first spin in the car, and it was to the NRH which made it even more special,” Maureen said.
“It made us feel like we were independent, and going there and to see how independent she could be was lovely.”
The NRH staff demonstrated how to get the most from her limited movements so she can open doors alone or push elevator buttons.
“We hadn’t realised how far she had progressed,” Maureen said.
“She is a tough girl, and she doesn’t realise it. I don’t even realise how tough she is because you’re in the moment and you see what is happening now, not reflecting on what happened previously.”
She added: “If you kept on thinking about what happened, you’d keep being soft on her.”
Féile is still studying too, supported by her mum. They get help from the hospital school and Feile’s own school. This is also where Maureen works as a teacher.
“I work predominantly in the SEN [special educational needs] sector or support sector, so when there is a child in hospital I’d been on the other side of it saying ‘we need to send this out to them’.
A Gaelic football coach herself, she has played with the Cork minors and a number of club teams, as well as Bantry Bay rugby club, so she is not too surprised her daughter still harbours sporting dreams.
“She’s still trying to blag horses out of us,” Maureen said with a laugh.
“She’s got a saddle sorted for herself, and she’s looking at the possibility of horse-riding. She’s sourced what type of prosthetics she needs, she’s looking it up on YouTube and figuring it out.”
The Paralympics are on the horizon.
“A few of the Paralympians reached out to us very early on. She had video calls with them, and they showed her their prosthetics and their daily lives. It was amazing,” she said.
She became emotional when saying she was initially more excited than Féile to see her daughter’s horizons opening up.
“One of the girls spoke to her about all the supports she had previously. She was telling her she was three when she started with prosthetics, that she had a big bag of them at home,” Maureen said.
Thinking back to the first days after the accident, she said: “It felt like you were in a bubble, in the third person looking down on everything. Even Féile would say that, sometimes she would ask ‘did that happen?’ or I would explain it and she would say ‘I feel like I watched that'.
“It’s actually crazy what our minds and bodies can do to protect us.”
The family have been amazed by a vast outpouring of love and support from people they know and strangers around the world.
The fundraiser is heading towards a staggering €1m, and Maureen is boosted up too by less-visible help.
“The GoFundMe is amazing, but the support side is even more vast than that. I think that gets lost sometimes,” she said.
She calls this “the quiet help” and values it all.
“We are just so appreciative to everyone, there’s no words to describe how much people have done for us,” she said.
“We never thought we’d need people as much as we do. Nobody’s ever questioned it, they’ve just done it.”
Maureen wrote a moving poem in August, published widely in the media, to try to express her gratitude. She jokes she has less time now for poetry as Féile’s rehabilitation picks up pace.
The list of supports and fundraising events seems endless; everything counts, everything helps.
“There are dark moments, but in the 24 hours if there’s 10 minutes that’s it. And she will always turn it bright, that’s the strength she holds,” Maureen said.
“She will say ‘oh it’s terrible this happened to me’, but then she’ll say ‘well maybe this happened because it could have been worse’, which is just crazy for a child of her age.”
She remembers watching Féile in the early days as doctors fought to save her.
“I used to say to my friend, ‘how are we going to explain this to her because, no matter how bad a nightmare you have, you would never lose your legs’,” she said.
She could only smile as Féile almost immediately turned her sympathy to other people there that awful day.
Her daughter listed everyone who saw the accident, and she had Maureen phone their mothers to check they were alright.
“Some of them would be men in their 50s and she asked me to ring their mothers and check they were OK,” she said.
Even when her friends came to visit in Crumlin, Féile asked her injuries be well covered in case anyone would be afraid or upset.
One thing she and her mum never stopped talking and dreaming about is going down home to Allihies.
So many friends and relatives have made the long journey up to Dublin, so many video calls been made, but it is just not the same.
“It’s about figuring out what she can do and what she can’t do,” her mother said.
They plan to travel down for a few days sometime this Christmas using the children’s ambulance service, Bumbleance.
“Féile says if we do go at least she’ll remember this ambulance trip, she’s really fed-up she doesn’t remember being in the helicopter [to CUH],” Maureen said.
The next big challenge will be where they live once Féile is finally cleared to return home for good.
“We had just started building and were meant to be putting down blocks that week [in July],” Maureen said.
“We’ve gone back to planning and got new planning again to change it from a two-storey to a bungalow.”
The funds raised will help a lot here. A number of contractors and construction companies have also been in touch with offers of help.
Maureen put in an application as well to RTÉ series in hopes of getting help in managing what will be a huge project.
They have a long road ahead in general, she pointed out.
“Everyone has that image of their future, but you forget you have to adapt whether something bad happens or not. You don’t know what is coming, never.”
For now, sitting up and playing Jenga with her cousins in Allihies is the goal for Féile. After that, all Maureen can say is she knows there will be another goal, and then another, and another.
When a fundraiser to support Féile O’ Sullivan was set up after her devastating accident in July, nobody expected how far people would go to help her.
Sympathy spread through her home village of Allihies, across Cork and Kerry, then Ireland, and around the world as far as Montana, USA.
Organisers estimate donations stand at about €1m, and they are ready to close it on Christmas Eve. Donations are transferred to a trust which will take in any future donations too.
A committee came together in the days after the accident, hoping they could help a little.
“In July, the place was raw. it was very raw in people’s minds and people were emotional talking about it,” councillor Finbarr Harrington said.
“I found it difficult to talk about, I’ve young kids myself. So fast forward to where she is now, it’s brilliant.”
He worked with Liz O’ Leary, Cormac McMahon, and Ollie Rue O’ Sullivan to set up a GoFundMe campaign called Stand 4 Féile.
“I’ve never seen the like of it,” he said.
“I suppose it just touched people, the simplicity of the accident maybe, and people in the farming community and rural life felt for them and understood it.”
He struggled to put into words how it felt to see sympathy spread so far.
“It’s a very close-knit community here,” he said.
“You’re talking just over 40 kids in the local primary school, you’re talking just under 300 adults in the parish.
Earlier this month, GoFundMe said Stand 4 Féile raised the most of any Irish campaign this year.
“We’re very confident it could reach €1m now, with donations from other events still coming in,” Mr Harrington said.
Donations may have started in farming, but the desire to help spread quickly to the arts, music, as well as sports clubs — especially GAA but also soccer, swimming, cycling, and many more.
“We often hear the bad stories about social media and the dark side of it, but I think this was definitely a story where social media played an important and a good role,” he said.
He repeatedly stressed it was not only high-profile events, saying every pub quiz and bake sale helped. A hand-made quilt donated from Butte, Montana, was one of the many international supports offered.
Féile is already using a donated power wheelchair, and an adapted car came via a golf classic tournament.
The next challenge will be housing. The committee is looking at how to manage donations of time and materials to build a home for Féile when she is ready.
“It’s been phenomenal, there’s just no words to describe it,” Mr Harrington said quietly.
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