In an instant Maggie Brown's life, and that of her family, changed forever.
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They had been laughing and chatting in the car on their way home from a family holiday in Phillip Island and guessing what time they'd finally get home as they were stuck in a traffic jam on the Western Freeway near Caroline Springs.
Seconds later Maggie was unconscious and fighting for life after a motorist hit the back of their car at 100kmh, propelling it over an embankment.
The impact slammed Maggie's head in to the car's side window, then the driver's seat which flipped back. Miraculously, she was the only one in the car to be injured.
As ambulance crews battled to save Maggie's life, her parents were told their daughter might not survive being airlifted to hospital and were forced to say their goodbyes on the roadside.
"We were talking about what a great time we had ... and the next minutes our lives were changed forever," said Maggie's mum Jayne Ferguson-Brown.
"She was intubated on the roadside and flown to the Royal Children's Hospital while we were escorted in a police car. They told us to say goodbye as they were not sure she would survive the trip."
Maggie, now 11, has an acquired brain injury as a result of the accident and endured 15 surgeries during the six weeks she was at the Royal Children's Hospital after the accident on July 13, 2018.
The grade five student has no visible scars from the accident but she lives with the impacts of the life-changing event every day and that 'invisible trauma' is hard for some people to understand.
"For Maggie because the scars aren't physical you can't see it so kids have the expectation of a very mature looking 11-year-old who is often having to compete with people's expectations versus her capacity," Ms Ferguson-Brown said.
Maggie and her family are receiving support from Kids Foundation, who have launched their inaugural 'Put Your Hand Up' campaign to raise funds and boost child safety awareness to keep children safe and free from injury and harm.
Watch the Put Your Hand Up campaign video below
The damage that the frontal lobe of Maggie's brain sustained in the accident has left her with life-long issues.
"It has impacted her capacity to emotionally regulate, she gets very fixated on things, quite paranoid about things, struggles with concentration and planning and she really needs predictability," Ms Ferguson-Brown said.
"She struggles with social relationships because she's not good with negotiation and because she gets fixated on a particular issue or position on something so she can get agitated easily - these are some of the common things the front lobe controls ... and it sometimes presents a little like an (autism) spectrum disorder."
Maggie can get easily overwhelmed, distressed, heightened, linear in her thinking and anxious because she knows her brain doesn't work the way it used to.
"She has trouble with predictability so change is not something Maggie copes with very well. She becomes very anxious about everything changing so when COVID first hit last year she had trouble understanding how it was going to look which made her very anxious.
"For Maggie the best place to be is at school because she needs to be in a structured environment."
Mrs Ferguson-Brown and her husband are both essential workers so Maggie has continued to attend school at St Francis Xavier during lockdown, but that caused problems because Maggie struggled to understand why she had to go to school but her friends did not.
"The issue for Maggie was why she had to go when all her friends were at home. For her it's about understanding that she has got an impairment and it does affect her so she has to have some different things happen for her and different supports in place.
"Part of her brain is not working in the same way and it doesn't do what it used to do so she gets anxious."
Maggie has support workers at school who help her plan and tackle her work, and soon after the accident Ballarat's Kids Foundation also stepped up to support Maggie and her family.
"I knew of Kids Foundation prior to our accident as I was friendly with (founder Susie O'Neill's daughter) and aware of their work but didn't know the extent.
"It wasn't relevant, like a lot of these things like the Royal Children's Hospital until you're there and part of it. I was aware they worked in schools and around safety prevention but didn't know any more about it."
Watch a video about Kids Foundation below
Kids Foundation run camps for trauma survivors who have experienced horrific injuries cause by burns, dog attacks, accidents, crime, neglect, and abuse, and their families. They also provide immediate and ongoing support services for the survivors and their families as they forge new lives with the impact of the injuries.
Maggie and her family attended a camp in Noosa where Maggie was able to mix with other children who had been through trauma - but it wasn't all smooth sailing.
"It was very tough because it was Maggie's first camp, she was really anxious and a lot of the kids knew each other so she had to find her place in that. She was also taken aback because most of the other kids on camp had visible signs of trauma and she didn't so she felt she had to justify why she was there.
"Maggie's injuries while not visible are still a traumatic injury."
For the rest of the family it was a "normalising" experience being able to talk to other parents who have been through a life-changing trauma with their children.
"I was so grateful to get among the other parents. While everyone's experience of trauma is different, it's quite normalising to realise there are others, particularly around dealing with the anxiety that kids have once they've experienced trauma and the kind of life you lead when you spend a lot of time at hospital and appointments."
Kids Foundation also offers access to resources, counselling and individual support.
But the past 18 months of the COVID pandemic has hit the foundation hard, leading to an 85 per cent drop in income because the foundation have not been able to run events.
So they've launched the inaugural Put Your Hand Up campaign, which runs throughout August, encouraging people to buy a $10 pair of gloves to help children be free from injury and harm.
Five thousand children present to hospital emergency departments across Australia each day, many with injuries resulting from accidents and injury in their own home and in the broader community.
"Of those who go to hospital a lot of have long term injuries like the children we deal with," said Kids Foundation founder Susie O'Neill.
"Every child has a right to be free from harm and injury. We do that in two ways, through education programs that empower young people to build self awareness and safety risk management, and in supporting children and families that are injured in horrific accidents because they need that ongoing support."
The 'Put Your Hand Up' campaign is supported by a host of Australian media and sporting identities, including Dr Richard 'Harry' Harris who who led the miraculous 2018 Thai cave rescue of school children, Steve Moneghetti, Hamish McLachlan, Geelong coach Chris Scott and many more.
IN OTHER NEWS
.It is the foundation's first public campaign.
"We looked for a concept for a number of years then in the middle of the night I thought about gloves," Ms O'Neill said. "We need to do what we can to make people realise all these injuries happen so 'Put Your Hand Up' for every child to be safe was born.
"Gloves, especially in Ballarat in winter, is an easy thing to sell and will really help build awareness for us and hopefully a long term funding model in case something like COVID happens again. We are not funded by governments and we don't go out and solicit to people ... we run events and often receive donations after events."
Kids Foundation 'Put Your Hand Up' gloves can be purchased kidsfoundation.org.au
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