.
“I was unconscious for a couple of weeks [after the school bus crash] and I’ve got big blanks because I had pretty critical head injuries.
“I think I was too scared to do it [until now] and I was too angry still. We were brought up with the stiff upper lip and you don’t talk about these things.”
Her investigation revealed that some students weren’t allowed to attend funerals, and during chapel, the principal told crying girls it was time for school. Parents weren’t permitted to take daughters home either, she says.
“It was confronting for me to learn how awful it was for everyone else too and I just felt so sad.”
Sally Wenley’s farm was out at Maraekakaho in the Hastings District.
Supplied via Massey University Press
Adjusting to life in a wheelchair, Wenley studied at Massey University but masked her anger and grief with risky behaviour – partying, drinking, getting into risky sexual situations and throwing herself onto the dance floor.
“I think I was not a nice person to a lot of people. And was that a multitude of reasons? Yeah, I think it is. It doesn’t justify my behaviour, but I think it attributes to some of what I’ve done…
“I think I tried to ignore my wheelchair.
“There wasn’t that much counselling. And what was [available], I probably rejected. I just wanted to be larger than life.”
Going into journalism: ‘I felt so lucky’
Wenley’s interest in journalism was sparked by influencial New Zealand sports writer, Sir Terry McLean, who knew her mother and visited the family farm.
“It steered me towards continuing my enjoyment of being nosy. So then I went to journalism school and he wrote me the most gorgeous letter…
“He has always backed me up, and I felt so lucky.”
Sally Wenley conducting an interview.
Supplied via Massey University Press
As Wenley ventured into the field, she had her own interesting stories to tell, including sitting between two tattooed gang members in a trashed state house.
“They both politely squished to each side.
I looked around and there’s a gun on the table, guy with a balaclava standing there, man on each side of me, one’s been shot and there’s this some sort of staffy dog sitting beside me, licking me … and I thought, this is fantastic. How lucky am I to experience this.
“I looked around and there’s a gun on the table, guy with a balaclava standing there, man on each side of me, one’s been shot and there’s this some sort of staffy dog sitting beside me, licking me – I had to look down to see it licking my legs, I can’t feel my leg – and I thought, this is fantastic. How lucky am I to experience this and to have people want to share their story.”
Giving birth ‘didn’t feel real’
When giving birth to her daughter – who is now 17 – Wenley couldn’t have an epidural because of her spinal injury, so she had to be given a general anaesthetic.
“I went into the operating theatre, countdown from ten and then boom, next second I’m in my bed holding this little black haired, blue-eyed squawking baby.
“It didn’t feel real that I had had this gorgeous little baby.
“I found that pretty weird for a few weeks and quite full on – the being a mum and trying to breastfeed, and I ended up with pressure areas on my bum from sitting up at all hours of the day and night.”
Regardless, Wenley says she’s chuffed because she knows not everyone who wants to be a mum can be.
A life-changing surgery
Wenley’s injury left her with pain that would nearly consume her – until a life-threatening, but ultimately successful surgery.
“I describe it as being like being stuck on an electric fence with having sandpaper rubbed all up and down your legs at the same time. It was all hours of the day and night, it just happens and I can’t sleep and it’s jolting and it’s exhausting and it’s depressing.”
The Crash, by Sally Wenley.
Supplied via Massey University Press
After exhausting medications, she decided to undergo a caudectomy procedure, which could’ve killed her or made it worse.
“I said, well, I was going to do myself in, which I actually got very close to. I was going to end it if I didn’t do something.”
The surgery reduced the pain by about 70 percent, she says.
“I put on weight. I became more relaxed. That was just so life-changing.”
Now, going back to confront the day of the crash and speaking to people who were there, Wenley says she understands more about herself, the ongoing effects of head injuries and the scale of what occurred.
“It’s opened that Pandora’s Box for so many other girls.
“So many girls have got in touch with me saying, ‘Oh my goodness what it was like back at school?’ … I even had a message from a woman who was a florist at the time and did flowers for the girls who were killed, and said ‘yeah there was that stiff upper lip mentality and people still carry that burden today’.”
The Crash, by Sally Wenley.
Supplied via Massey University Press
