Everything to Live For: The Inspirational Story of Turia Pitt

by Pitt, Turia

  About the Book

  In September 2011, Turia Pitt, a beautiful twenty-four-year-old mining engineer working at her dream job in Western Australia, entered an ultramarathon race that would change her life forever. Caught by fire in a remote gorge in the Kimberley, Turia and five other competitors had nowhere to run. Eventually – through an act of heroism – air-lifted to hospital, she had suffered catastrophic burns to 65 per cent of her body.

  Battle upon battle has followed: first to survive, next to adapt – to the remnants of her face, the loss of fingers, daily therapy, endless operations – and then for justice. Because the race should never have happened. Turia’s fight with the race organisers is ongoing.

  Everything to Live For explores Turia’s journey and the web of people and events around it. It is a study of strength – of Turia’s will; of the love of her partner, Michael, and the couple’s families; and of the support from their community in Ulladulla, New South Wales, who have rallied, raising funds to help with huge medical bills.

  It is a miracle Turia lived when she was expected to die. But Turia was not ready to die – she had too much to live for.

  This book is dedicated to the other two ‘amigos’ – my mother and Michael

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title

  Dedication

  Map

  Foreword by Michael Usher, 60 Minutes

  Prologue: Fire

  1 My Life Before

  2 Michael

  3 The Run-up

  4 The Race

  5 The Aftermath of Hell

  6 Delay

  7 Miscommunications

  8 Rescue

  9 The Bad News

  10 Intensive Care

  11 Dark Days

  12 The Three Amigos

  13 The Organiser’s Response

  14 My Life After

  15 More Milestones

  16 A Life Beyond

  17 The Ripple Effect

  18 Holding Responsibility

  Epilogue: Fundraising

  About Skin Donation

  Notes

  Picture Credits

  Acknowledgements – Turia Pitt

  Acknowledgements – Libby Harkness

  About the Authors

  Picture Section

  Copyright notice

  Loved the Book?

  FOREWORD

  TURIA PITT IS THE STRONGEST PERSON I KNOW. SHE’S ALSO SMART, tough, funny and forthright.

  Believe me, there have been times over the past two years when our interviews and conversations have turned around and suddenly Turia’s the one asking me the questions!

  That strength and willpower allowed Turia to become a survivor. And one of the most amazing survivors you’ll ever meet. She shouldn’t have lived through the hell of that outback bush fire: her doctors have never seen a burns patient live, having suffered such deep and severe burns. But Turia doesn’t give up. It’s not in her nature. She questions, she challenges, and she works damn hard to regain her independence.

  None of us can really understand what Turia endures every day as she rebuilds her life. But I do know that she has my highest respect.

  Her story is inspirational. You’ll be embarrassed by your daily gripes and complaints when you realise what Turia goes through every day to rebuild her life.

  I think you’ll also find that Turia’s story will challenge your own fears and insecurities. What happens when your looks change? What happens when your physical identity becomes something entirely different? How do you see yourself and how do others see you? Turia has had to confront all of this, and she has some amazing answers to these questions. Most beautifully, she’s always told me that her burns may have been skin deep, but the fire couldn’t touch her soul. And her soul is full of love, strength and hope.

  I was nervous when I first met Turia in late 2011 when she was still in the burns ward. Those nerves didn’t last long. Turia very quickly started hitting me with questions, we had a laugh and we became mates.

  You’ll also have a laugh with Turia as she tells her story. But mostly I think, like me, you’ll be in awe of her spirit. Turia’s story puts our own lives in some much-needed perspective.

  Michael Usher, 60 Minutes

  PROLOGUE

  FIRE

  THE FIRE WAS COMING TOWARDS US SO FAST THERE WAS NO time to think. The noise was louder than a jet engine and I was scared. My heart was pumping. Searing heat and thick smoke were stressing me more.

  I didn’t know the others; I told one of them that I was scared and he said not to worry, that if we hid behind the rocks halfway up the hill the fire would just go over us.

  There was no way out; I knew I had to go up; I also knew fire went faster up hills. The rocky escarpment was steep and covered in long dry grass. I had already run about 23 kilometres and I was pretty tired but I made it to the rock ledge with the others and we stood there for a minute as the fire raged towards us. It all happened very quickly.

  I dragged a long-sleeved top from my backpack and tried to protect my legs with it as I curled up in a small depression among the rocks. But it just got hotter and hotter and hotter . . . I couldn’t stand it anymore. Terrified, I stood and tried scrambling further up the hill and that’s when the fire swept over me; I fell, and as I put my hands out in front of me, they were on fire.

  I was screaming; I don’t know for how long or how loud. I was screaming with terror and crying with pain. Fuck, is this how I die? At that moment the person I thought about most was Michael. No, this is not how I die.

  Then I felt nothing. I don’t remember much else after that.

  Turia Pitt

  ONE

  MY LIFE BEFORE

  ON FRIDAY 2 SEPTEMBER 2011, AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-FOUR, while competing in an ultramarathon in the beautiful Kimberley region of Far North Western Australia, my life changed forever.

  I can never get my old life back. It’s gone, along with my fingers, my old face and nose, the smooth skin on my arms, legs and neck; gone also is the way the world looked at me. The way strangers look at me now is different to the way they looked at me before the fire.

  I was living the dream life. I was fit, healthy and happy; I had it all – a great family, a cool job, a fun circle of friends and a man I loved. I still have those things – the company I worked for even said I could have my old job back if I wanted it. But nothing is really the same. And never will be. I will have a disability for the rest of my life, and I am still young.

  Let me tell you about the life I had before the fire.

  I was born in Papeete, Tahiti, on 28 July 1987; my mum, Célestine, is Tahitian from a place called Faa’a. Dad, Michael, is Australian from Sydney. Dad was living his dream life – living and surfing in Tahiti – when he met Mum. She was sixteen, very beautiful and training to be a teacher. They married when she was seventeen; she had my brother Genji when she was eighteen and me when she was nineteen.

  By the time I was born, Dad had been living in Tahiti for six years and, while he loved it, he was seriously thinking of moving back to Australia as he wanted us to be brought up there. He’s a graphic artist, and when he was offered a good job opportunity in Sydney he decided to take it, and we moved there in 1988. I was eight months old and Genji was eighteen months.

  When we first arrived we lived in the inner-city suburb of Chippendale, where I took my first steps at nine months. Mum says that even as a toddler, I was always active, always wanting to be on the go. She would walk us to Hyde Park in the city, Genji walking beside the pushchair, with me in i
t struggling to get out and walk too.

  We moved to Maroubra when I was three and it was also about this time when we first went back to Tahiti. I was too young to remember much but Mum tells me all my relatives were so happy to see Genji and me. My mamie (Tahitian grandmother) says we may have been brought up in Australia, but our spirit belongs to the fenua (land).

  I started school at Daceyville Primary in Maroubra; Genji was already there and I couldn’t wait to join him. One of the main things I remember about my childhood is looking up to Genji. We were close, not just in age. I was always trying to tag along wherever he went; sometimes he’d let me, other times he wouldn’t.

  We were quite competitive though. I was always trying to outdo anything he did. He was hyperactive and not afraid of anything. Because we didn’t have a telly, Genji and I used to climb up on the roof and watch our neighbours’ telly through their skylight. Once he tried to get me to jump off the roof but I wouldn’t. I’m adventurous but I wasn’t that stupid! We shared a room when we were young and I was more particular about my side of the room than he was about his and I drew a line down the middle that he wasn’t allowed to cross.

  I was into books at an early age. Mum loved reading and wanted to be a writer. To improve her English, she joined the Bowen Library in Maroubra and always had a big pile of books in the house. She and Dad didn’t believe in TV, so we didn’t have one for many years and we were encouraged to read instead. Every Friday night we would go to Bowen and select our books for the coming week. I loved books by Roald Dahl (and still do), and as I got older I would read books by Paul Jennings. Genji wasn’t much of a reader but he liked the ‘Tomorrow’ series by John Marsden – more action.

  Dad comes from a tight-knit family. He and his two brothers – all keen surfers – grew up in Maroubra but spent a lot of their childhood and teenage years down the south coast of New South Wales; his grandparents had retired there and the surf was good. Soon after we arrived from Tahiti, Dad and his brothers put a deposit on a weekender at Lake Tabourie on the South Coast, about a four-hour drive from Sydney. Dad liked the way the Greeks and Italians met up for big family get-togethers at weekends and holidays and he thought that was the way our family should be too.

  By the time I was four, we were going down to Tabourie every second weekend and for holidays and we loved it. Genji and I would sit in the back of Dad’s Citroën making up songs about going down the coast: ‘Down the coast, down the coast, we’re going down the coast . . .’ We chanted this monotonously all the way there. We thought it was fun – it probably drove Mum and Dad mad.

  Tabourie was where Genji and I first learnt to surf. Genji was really good right from the start. Dad would help me on the board and push me out into the waves but over the years I found Genji a better teacher – he was fearless in the surf. When I wasn’t in the water or running along the beach with Dad, I was reading.

  We had such a good time down there, no one ever wanted to go back to Sydney when the holiday ended. One day Dad said to Mum that we didn’t actually have to go back. With the arrival of the internet, Dad’s business had become portable and he thought bringing us up in a small community would be good for the family.

  On the way to and from Tabourie, we would drive through Ulladulla, which was only a few kilometres away. Mum and Dad liked Ulladulla and so they decided to move there when I was eight. At first I wasn’t very happy about the idea of leaving everything I knew in Sydney, especially the library. But we had a family vote and I was outvoted. Once we moved there I loved it and started making really good and lifelong friends.

  Ulladulla is well known for its protected harbour, which is where the largest fishing fleet on the South Coast moors. It is a major tourist town and full of holiday homes. One of its annual attractions is the ‘Blessing of the Fleet’ ceremony on Easter Sunday, with a parade and fireworks, and it’s very exciting. Everyone takes part in the parade, especially the kids, who dress up and ride through the town on the floats. The floats have princesses, and I was a princess on one of the floats once. Part of the festivities over the Easter weekend is the Blessing of the Fleet Ball; I wore a pale green long gown and I was partnered by a friend, Nathan Carlson. It was the first time I started to feel more like a young woman and less like a girl. Genji was there and so was his friend Michael Hoskin, who was the partner of another girl; even then I had my eye on him.

  But the best thing about Ulladulla is its beautiful beaches and great surf. Growing up, I was athletic and a bit of a tomboy and lived outdoors; we were encouraged to be active – swimming, surfing, bike-riding, running. Genji and I were both in the school swimming squad.

  Mum and Dad bought a great house on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Dad, Genji and I would get up early and go down to the beach below and check the surf; if it was good, we’d be out there. When the surf wasn’t up, we’d go for a run then go back to bed before school. Sometimes, if the surf was really good, we’d be late for school. I have long legs and especially loved running; Dad, who was seriously into keeping fit, would encourage my running and if he didn’t think I was trying hard enough he’d push me to do better. Sometimes I’d be stung to tears but I was always determined and I never gave up trying to improve whatever I was doing.

  When we first moved to Ulladulla it was just Mum, Dad, Genji and me. When I was nine, Mum had my younger brother Heimanu and then two years after that she had my brother Toriki. They were such cute babies and I loved them – I was their big ‘Sissy’.

  Mum started writing seriously in Ulladulla. She writes under her maiden name, Célestine Hitiura Vaite, and when she wrote her first book, Breadfruit, I was twelve; she used to give me chapters to read as she did them because she wanted to make sure her English was correct. When she wrote her second book, Frangipani, she didn’t give me chapters to read. That book won a lot of literary awards and I was very proud of her. She also dedicated that book to me (I’m returning the favour, Mum!).

  Genji and I started high school at Ulladulla High. Back then, there were probably about 800 students at the school and they came from all the surrounding directions. I hadn’t been there long when decided that I wanted to go St John’s Catholic School in Nowra; I have no idea now what instigated this idea but Mum and Dad agreed and enrolled me there. Genji followed and, being Genji, was popular straight away.

  Going to St John’s meant we had to make an hour’s journey by school bus. When I was fifteen, the bus was involved in a serious accident on our way home. We were near the town of Sussex Inlet when a car crashed into the side of the bus, flipping it over onto its side. The bus driver kicked out the front window and we climbed out, but one boy was trapped and killed; he was the sixteen-year-old brother of one of my best friends and in Genji’s year. It was awfully sad. Genji and I got out with just a few bumps and bruises but a lot of the other kids were injured and were taken to hospital.

  Genji and I had a lucky escape but Mum and Dad freaked out and took us out of St John’s. The accident happened on a notorious stretch of road – windy and hilly, with cars doing 100 kilometres an hour – and they believed it was too dangerous for us to be making the journey twice a day five days a week. I thought it was a stupid decision because how likely was it to happen a second time?

  I was extremely pissed off about having to leave St John’s; I loved the school and had lots of friends there. Genji went back to Ulladulla High and my parents put me into the local Shoalhaven Anglican School, but I didn’t adjust at all so I also ended up back at Ulladulla High.

  I always loved school, especially maths and science, as they appealed to my logical way of looking at things. One teacher who stands out when I look back on my years at Ulladulla High was my physics teacher, Mr Christiansen. I loved his classes – he was so enthusiastic and passionate about science. I think he was pretty proud of me being the first girl from the school to get over ninety per cent in physics. One teacher I often clashed with was Mr Torney, my maths teacher. I was very stubborn and impatient in his clas
ses. Nonetheless, I still managed to get the Noether Mathematics Medal (awarded to the top performing maths student at Ulladulla High) as well as come first in mathematics and mathematics extension. In retrospect, I can see that a large part of my success in maths was due to Mr Torney’s influence.

  I guess I always wanted to make a difference in the world, though I didn’t know how. Once in class the teacher asked us, if we could choose any magazine we would like to be on the cover of, what would it be; and while a lot of my classmates said Cleo or Cosmo, I said I wanted to be on the cover of New Scientist for discovering something that was going to be meaningful to society. Mum tells people I wanted to be prime minister; I dispute this.

  I met Kristen Briggs, whom we all now call just ‘Briggs’ and Nicola Tucker at high school. We became close in our later years of school. Although we are all very different, we share the same attributes – drive, determination and ambition.

  In my younger years at high school I wanted to be a doctor. I’m not sure what changed my mind – possibly knowing that it was what Mum wanted, and when you’re young you have a tendency to rebel.

  I studied really hard for my Higher School Certificate (HSC) and got a score of 93, which was enough to get me into engineering at university. Choosing engineering was the logical conclusion after my logical selection process. I wrote down the things I was good at and what I wanted from a job, such as career prospects and the opportunity to travel. I was a bit naïve I think. Mining sounded cool – huge trucks and big explosions; of course I was to find out it wasn’t like that at all!

  I had aspirations about doing something that involved mining’s impact on the environment. I talked it over with Dad and we came to the conclusion that I’d be able to do more about the environment by working in mining rather than becoming a protester on the outside. I believe that mining could coexist with good environmental outcomes.

  My eighteenth year was pretty big in more ways than one. Apart from sitting my HSC, it was the year Mum and Dad separated; at first I was angry with Dad, blaming him. But eventually I realised they were probably just not compatible, and they’d married when they were very young anyway. He stayed in our house, and Mum moved out but remained in Ulladulla, and my little brothers divided their time between them.