‘I was the code blue’: A doctor’s story of paraplegia to walking the wards again
Dr Olivia Ong was walking across a hospital car park when she was hit by a car.
In 2008, as a 27-year-old rehabilitation physician registrar, Dr Olivia Ong was walking across the hospital car park when she was hit by a car, causing a catastrophic spinal injury.
Told she was an ‘incomplete paraplegic’ and unlikely to walk again, in this edited extract from her new book Back on My Feet she describes returning as a registrar to the same Melbourne hospital after years of gruelling rehab.
‘Code blue in the car park. Code blue in the car park.’
I heard the words blasting from the PA system of the Royal Talbot Rehabilitation Centre and a chilling realisation washed over me. I was the code blue.
