Struck by tree: Victim speaks for the first time
For the mother, the day started just over a year ago like any other. At 7:45 a.m., she walked with her son to elementary school. While they were walking on the sidewalk in Ing.-Etzel-Strasse, she heard a crackle in the background and turned around. She watched as a giant black locust field headed in her direction from behind.
Semira Camdzic only partially remembered how the accident happened: “I pushed my son away and told him to run away. I turned around once more and saw how the tree is leaning more and more. He fell on my face. Then I can’t remember anything.”
Eyewitness alerted rescue
The then 46-year-old was hit in the head by a massive branch and crushed under the tree. Her seven-year-old son Adel was also on the ground, miraculously unharmed.
Gerhard Farbmacher observed the accident up close, he was a first responder and someone who alerted the rescue service. “The woman was bleeding from the head. I told her that her son was fine and that she should remain calm until the emergency services came,” the eyewitness recalled the tragic moment. It was an accident in which a person has little chance of surviving.
“I have a little son, I have to live”
Semira Camdzic woke up from the coma 47 days later, on May 7, 2021. In the accident, they suffered a fracture of the base of their skull with open craniocerebral trauma and a pronounced impact in the area of the forebrain, the speech and vision center. It moves several life-threatening treatments during hospital stays in the Innsbruck Clinic and in the Hochzirl State Hospital.
Half of the face, hearing, taste, smell and balance are permanently damaged. And the list could go on. A lot of things that the treating team of doctors check out during ongoing checks are not visible from the outside.
Despite all the surprises and lasting damage, the head of neurology at the LKH Hochzirl, Elke Pucks-Faes, describes the course of the recovery as outstanding: “The course of the recovery is somehow limited to a miracle, not least because the first aid in the Innsbruck clinic also worked excellently.
“For the patient, the fight back to life involved a lot of effort and effort. In rehabilitation, we also notice again and again how important it is what the background of patients is, what reason they have to get back on their feet,” says the neurologist. Looking back, Semira Camdzic says: “I wanted to survive for my son, who is still small, for my daughter and my husband”.
The Camdzic family is now asking the city of Innsbruck for approval for a barrier-free apartment, which the accident victim urgently needs.