DURBAN - All Mar-Louise Pretorius remembers is the fear in her husband’s eyes as the couple fell several metres on to hard rock at Karkloof Falls.
“I cannot remember how I fell. I have no memory of the landing. I don’t know if it will come back. I hope not,” she told the Independent on Saturday after being discharged from hospital, having undergone eye surgery.
Her husband, Andre, woke from a two-week coma last weekend and has since moved to Northdale, a public hospital in Pietermaritzburg, to escape mounting medical bills. The transfer involved a lengthy wait to be admitted, assisted only by friends and family.
“Luckily they were with him,” said Mar-Louise, who also moved to a public hospital - Greys - when she came around.
Mar-Louise said she was able to talk to him and he responded by touching her hair.
“He once lifted his arm while my head was on his chest. It felt like a hug.”
Before her transfer to Greys, Mar-Louise had managed to visit him, lying on a stretcher as he lay in his bed on the other side of a pane of glass.
Later, from her bed in Greys, she watched her husband on a video call on her cellphone and saw him react slowly to her voice.
The Howick couple had earlier sacrificed their medical aid to enable their 3-year-old son Liam, who has a speech impediment, to receive therapy.
The family had gone to the falls with friends on October 6 and walked near the top of the smaller, upper waterfall that is part of the 98m drop. Andre wandered a step too far and Mar-Louise rushed to his rescue after setting Liam down, out of harm’s way.
“We dropped 10m to 17m,” said Mar-Louise.
She expects to have a follow-up operation in three months.
Mar-Louise said she expected a long journey ahead.
“Each day there is a little progress, no matter how small. We don’t know the extent of the brain damage.
“I believe we shall have a normal life in the end but that it will take time because we need to be there for Liam.”
Their son has gone to her parents in Worcester in the Western Cape where he will enrol at a school for the deaf where his grandmother is a teacher. His paternal grandparents are also nearby, in Hermanus.
“We don’t know what he knows, but he is full of smiles.”
She said that not being with her has forced Liam to try to speak.
“He is starting to be more verbal now that he can’t be lazy being with me.”
The Pretoriuses have lived in several places while Andre has done construction and artisan jobs.
In Howick, where they moved two years ago, he has been laying concrete foundations for Eskom installations, Mar-Louise said. She is a cosmetologist, specialising in skin care, health and wellness.
She described her energetic, outdoors-loving husband as someone who always kept himself busy, especially between contracts.
“If there is no job he gets his act together and can do anything. We won’t be rich, but we’ll always have food on the table.”
Now, with medical bills reaching about R400000, the Pretoriuses fear they will not be able to cover them on their modest earnings.
People can help with donations through the website, www.backabuddy.co.za/champion/project/mar-louise-and-andres-medical-treatment.
Back to the fall, Mar-Louise believes God has a bigger plan for her little family. “He really did catch us when we fell, and that’s why I can’t remember the trauma.”