By PAUL MILLAR
A FIVE-YEAR-OLD Geelong West girl has been labelled a “miracle child” after surviving a fall onto concrete from the third storey of a Jakarta building.
Billi Lucas broke her back in the horror fall but has made a stunning recovery and is on her way back to Australia in a cast back-brace, lying on a flatbed for the flight home.
The lively youngster was in Indonesia with mother Elana ‘Saz’ Col-Lucas and seven-year-old sister Java, visiting long-time friends when she had her accident.
Billi’s father, Brad, was at home in Geelong when he received the call every parent dreads.
“I was working at the café (Botticelli) and Saz called me and told me that Billi had a fall and to get over there right away,” Mr Lucas told the Independent from the Medistra Hospital, where his daughter had staff shaking their heads in disbelief this week.
The flight was probably the longest flight of his life, he said.
Mr Lucas was filled in on the details of the fall on arrival but had another anxious wait with his wife as doctors tried to determine the extent of their daughter’s injuries.
“I just had the worst of thoughts while I was flying over there,” the café owner said.
“She’d fallen three storeys from the balcony onto the concrete. She had her hands out as she fell and landed on her stomach, which seems to have prevented any damage to her head.”
Billi fell during a thunderstorm.
The plucky girl somehow managed to get to her feet and painfully made her way to her stunned mother, saying “I’ve fallen”.
Ms Col-Lucas, a teacher of Indonesian, is a regular visitor to the country after becoming a Rotary exchange student some years ago.
Since then the relationship has blossomed and her Indonesian friends have become like a second family.
That second family proved a godsend, providing unending support and vital local knowledge after Billi’s accident.
Mr Lucas said Jakarta’s horrendous traffic snarls would delay the arrival of an ambulance for too long, so the friends helped drive Billi to the hospital instead.
“It was pretty amazing – they say that the traffic just seemed to part for them.”
From then on it was a case of wait and pray. Ms Col-Lucas remained at her daughter’s bedside as her husband travelled over from Australia.
Billi suffered a break and a fracture in her lower back but appeared to have avoided any head trauma.
On Australia Day she stood up with a cast on her back to take some tentative steps.
“They’re calling her the miracle baby,” Mr Lucas said.
“They couldn’t believe she was out of the wheelchair. I’m not a religious person but I do believe there has been some divine intervention.
“Every time I look at her I just cannot believe the way she has recovered. She’s come on leaps and bounds.
“She’s the same old Billi, except she has a broken back.”
Mr Lucas said the family had taken out travel insurance and had been well looked after since Billi’s accident.
