Words of wisdom from Yvonne Smith 49 years after brutal Western Highway crash

The Warrenheip woman's life might be different today if a truckie almost half a century ago had flicked off their high beams on a still summer's night on a wet Western Highway.

All she saw was the intense lights - not the road, the road shoulder, or the tree she hit.

Now 80, this gutsy survivor will never know the driver or even the truck - because they failed to stop - but she knows the exact date: Wednesday, December 11, 1974.

"I just remember the headlights. That was all I could see. The rest was black," Ms Smith said.

"Then I remember the bushes rushing past the window.

"I don't know exactly what happened next. I must have blacked out. I don't know for how long. The next thing I remember was the pain."

The highway was part of Gordon's main street back then - and the crash happened on a sweeping bend near the town's cemetery.

"I woke up and tried to push the horn," she said.

"I could smell petrol. I had this idea in my head that the car was going to catch fire and I had to get out quickly. The door wouldn't move.

From that moment the then-31-year-old also suffered a severe headache that lasted 12 months.

"I couldn't see any traffic. It was really quiet at that time of night."

The accident happened two weeks before Cyclone Tracey hit Darwin - but Ms Smith was staring down a catastrophe of her own.

"I don't know how, but I had to find the seatbelt - which saved my life - and somehow get out," she said.

"The general consensus was that I must have scrambled through what was left of the windscreen.

"I was in so much pain. I got out and tried to steady myself and I put my hand on a car tyre and it turned under my hand.

"I actually realised the car had been upside down."

She staggered back to the bitumen, and covered in blood, flagged down the first car.

"I found out later it was a young couple from Bacchus Marsh. I never got their names but I wish I could thank them.

"They put me in their car. I was so bloodied - I would've made a real mess of it.

"They took me back to Gordon.

"They were door-knocking along the main road to get help."

The mother-of-three had been at a community catering meeting in Gordon, and was on her way home to nearby Llandeilo.

"I remember I was somehow on the side of the main road outside my friend's house.

"Betty Winter told me years later she still kept the pillow that she put under my head that night to remind her of how lucky we all are.

"And Marlene Burns was there - she was a nurse in Ballan who lived in Gordon. She went into Ballarat with me in the ambulance.

"I remember Marlene rubbing my feet because they were so cold. Nothing could warm me up. I think it was shock. My system was shutting down."

Her broken collarbone, other injuries and rehabilitation were treated solely in Ballarat.

"I remember being in the emergency department at Ballarat Base.

"The next thing I can remember - and this is distinct - I heard one male voice say to the other 'I can see the jugular pumping'. It's as neat as a surgical incision. I don't know if I was in the ED or theatre at that stage."

Meanwhile friends swung into action back at Gordon.

"When Marlene and Betty realised I was on my own in the car, people went looking for it - then they also went looking for my husband," she said.

"They said they searched a wide area in case he'd been flung out."

"Tom was actually at home. He'd gone to bed - but my daughter could just not settle.

"She went and asked her father: 'Where's mum? When's she coming home?.

"For some reason she must have had an inkling that something wasn't quite right."

The Fiskville CFA training centre employee praised her children - especially the eldest, a 13-year-old girl - for taking on extra roles for months on end.

"My daughter was her father's right-hand man for at least eight months I'd say," she said.

"For a long time I lived on drugs (for the headaches). That caused other issues - but they did help with the pain. The use of the arm was a challenge."

She said any loud noise or movement in floorboards on the other side of the house would cause extreme pain. She spent long periods in bed. Friends with nursing experience would help her shower.

A plate and screws were inserted for the broken collarbone - and they're still there.

"Being driven into town for physio - just the different camber in the road was enough to put pressure on my body and cause terrible pain," she said.

The accident also prevented her from driving for a year, and cut her off from the things she loved.

"The other huge memory I have of that time is my friend Joyce walking me right down to the back of the farm - and up on top of the hill was my beautiful little horse Goldy," she said.

"I called him and saw him move his head a bit. Then I called him again.

The third time I called, he absolutely bolted down.

"He came to a stop in front of me. He must have sensed that one side of me was no good.

"He put his head on my other shoulder and pretty much gave me a hug.

"Oh God, he was beautiful," she said, grabbing a box of tissues. "I'll never forget that.

"Trust Goldy to do this to me," she said through tears. "I could tell him things that I couldn't tell anyone else."

Ms Smith also spoke of a hospital visitor who reassured her that her brush with death "must have happened for a reason".

"I believe I was spared to be able to become a nurse," she said. "I took it up in 1981. Caring for people in aged care was a privilege and I loved it. I did it for 26 years."

She never saw her new red Ford again - except in the pages of The Courier.

The December 13, 1974 edition was overshadowed by another accident not far away - but this time it was fatal.

The morning after the Gordon rollover, a rail worker died at Bradshaw, west of Ballan, after a collision with an unexpected train running late.

Almost 50 years later, Ms Smith still carries the physical and emotional scars.

"I have this thing that runs from near the top of my skull, across my ear, down my neck and across my arm - and they think that was the rear vision mirror (hitting me).

"Then I had a double break in the clavicle. They said the steering wheel caused that.

"I still get niggles in my left arm. I know it's not old age because the other arm's fine."

Ms Smith said she could "never ever" thank the emergency workers and community who "put me back together again - mentally and physically."

Today the 80-year-old is using the voice of experience to warn others.

She wrote to The Courier, concerned about commercials showing cars speeding, swerving onto the wrong side of the road, driving through rivers and parking on cliff tops.

"This is surely not promoting safe driving," she wrote.

"I strongly believe this type of advertising isn't appropriate - especially when the road toll is so high again.

"Years ago I survived an extremely nasty accident.

"I wasn't able to return to work for 15 months.

"This changed my entire life - and of my family."

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