- Little Ainsley ran towards her grandad, Eugene, while he was on a ride-on mower, but tripped over feet and tumbled forward.
- Eugene immediately hopped off the mower to pick up his baby when he let out a blood-curdling scream.
- Sadly her six severed fingers weren’t able to be reattached.
Here Meghann tells her story in her own words.
Wrapping my little girl, Ainsley in a cuddle, I stroked her curly red locks and smiled.
‘Are you ready to go home, sweetheart?’ I asked.
‘Can I stay for a sleepover?’ Ainsley, then four, pleaded.
It was August 2021, and Ainsley and her siblings, Michael, then six, Madison, 18, and Caitlyn, 19, had spent the day with my parents-in-law, Eugene and Betty Anne.
A real outdoorsy girl, Ainsley spent every waking minute in the fresh air, climbing trees, pushing her baby doll in a pram, and helping her grandfather in the garden. They had such a special bond.
‘You’ll have to ask Papa,’ I smiled.
Without missing a beat, Ainsley leapt off the back deck, bounding excitedly towards Eugene on his ride-on mower.
READ MORE: Maimed by a lawnmower!
Spotting her coming, he switched off the motor.
But as she was going along in a hurry, Ainsley tripped over her feet, causing her to tumble forwards.
Sliding on her belly with her arms outstretched, she came to a stop with her hands under the deck of the mower, where the razor sharp blades are housed.
In a flash, Eugene had stepped off the mower and scooped a shocked Ainsley into his arms.
Get the car!
But when he looked down at her, he let out a blood-curdling scream.
That’s when I saw it. Blood was spurting from my baby’s hands like fireworks.
Jumping into action, my hubby Michael, 42, who’d been standing on the back deck with me, raced to our girl’s side.
Placing her hands together in a prayer position, he whipped off his shirt and used it as a tourniquet around her wounds.
‘Get the car!’ Michael screamed.
READ MORE: Mum’s warning after her girl loses her hand in their yard
I dashed inside to grab the keys, before racing out to the driveway where Michael and Ainsley were waiting.
Driving to the hospital 10 minutes away, Michael called the ambulance en route.
‘How bad is the injury?’ the dispatcher asked.
‘It’s both hands, her fingers are gone,’ I heard Michael’s voice say from the back seat.
Tears streamed down my face as I focused on the road ahead.
‘I promise to keep my bandaids on, Mummy,’ Ainsley declared bravely, nodding towards her daddy’s shirt wrapped around her hands.
Her fingers are gone
Michael made a call to Betty Anne, and she retrieved three of Ainsley’s severed fingers that were scattered across the garden and placed them in a zip lock bag with ice, before racing to meet us at the hospital.
At emergency, a team of doctors was waiting for our arrival.
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My stomach flipped as I watched the bag containing Ainsley’s mutilated fingers pass hands.
Ainsley’s wounds were cleaned and wrapped with gauze before she was airlifted to another hospital, three hours away, where a paediatric surgeon was on standby.
After watching as Michael and Ainsley went up in the helicopter, I raced home to pack each of us an overnight bag, before making my way there.
My poor girl
The mower blades had amputated six of Ainsley’s fingers, leaving just her two pointers and thumbs. Half her right palm had also been severed in the accident.
While the lawnmower had been turned off, the blades had still been whirring when Ainsley’s hands slid under.
‘My poor girl,’ I cried.
I gave her one last kiss before she was whisked away for six-hour surgery.
‘We couldn’t reattach her fingers,’ a surgeon told us afterwards, gently.
Instead, they’d used the skin from her severed fingers to graft over what was left of her mangled hands. Thankfully the muscles and tendons behind each missing finger were still intact.
Coming to in recovery, courageous Ainsley’s spirits were high.
After four days in hospital, Ainsley was cleared to return home with 170 stitches, and wound vacs – a vacuum-assisted therapy that helps wounds heal – on her hands.
‘It’s all my fault,’ Michael’s dad, Eugene, said through tears when he saw Ainsley’s injuries.
‘You didn’t hurt me. It was an accident,’ Ainsley said. And Michael and I felt the same.
Ainsley chose grandpa Eugene as her nurse, and we visited each night for dinner. He changed her bandages and tended to her wounds while they sang their ABC together.
Ten days after her accident, Ainsley had her first day at preschool, wound vacs and all.
‘I fell under the lawnmower,’ she told her friends.
Our girl’s hands healed well without infection. But she struggled to grasp objects, and had to relearn how to hold a cup and close her softball glove.
Covid meant access to physio sessions were limited, so instead our determined Ainsley worked at reteaching herself until she got it right.
Now almost four years on, Ainsley is a strong-willed little eight-year-old living her best life.
‘High five,’ I heard a teacher say recently to Ainsley.
‘I can give you a high two,’ she cheekily replied.
Whether Ainsley is playing softball or doing gymnastics, there’s absolutely no stopping her.
Watching my girl hold a perfect hand stand with just four fingers, I can’t help but smile.
‘You are so brave,’ I remind her every day.
A lawnmower took my girl’s fingers, but it didn’t steal her zest for life!
