Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
[Caption: John Maher's Story]
[Music]
>> John Maher: At age twenty-four, I joined the insurance industry in Ballarat.
When I was twenty-eight, T and G moved me to Bendigo to take over the agency manager's
role in the Bendigo office, and we were incredibly successful.
At age forty-two I was injured in a fatal car crash. A young girl, who was eighteen
years old, had her license for just twenty-three days, lost control of her four-wheel drive.
she rolled up the highway. I'd stopped my car and bounced up in the air. The four-wheel
drive bounced up in the air and landed upside down on the roof of my car.
Emma died unfortunately, and I was seriously injured.
>> Ange Maher: I was a little bit unlucky that I did come across the accident and was
the second one on the scene.
>> John Maher: I can tell you, I learnt that day that a car crash is not just a car crash
>> Ange Maher: I stayed with John while they cut him out of the car, which took an hour
and a half and, by then, some freinds came and helped me and were with me at the time.
>> John Maher: I was trying to come to terms with what had happened to me. I had injuries,
I was in a pretty bad way.
>> Ange Maher: Once John was removed from the car, I accompanied him to hospital in
the ambulance, which was something you never think you'd have to do.
But thank goodness he was alive.
>> John Maher: I lost my job because I had frontal lobe damage, which causes serious
short term memory problems.
>> Ange Maher: It was a longer recovery than what we thought, because of the head trauma
he received that day. And really, our lives were never the same.
>> John Maher: I was in counselling because I found myself waking up at two o'clock in
the morning, amd it was almost like as if the alarm was set.
And it was night after night I'd wake up. I'd get out of bed, I'd try not to wake Ange
up, I'd get the crutches and I'd get down into the kitchen.
And sometimes I would sit in the kitchen and cry for an hour, and I was crying for Emma
who had been killed in my car crash,
because Emma was exactly the same age as Katrina my second eldest child and, thank God that
car crash wasn't my fault,
because I don't know how I would've handled things if I had've caused Emma - been the
cause of Emma's death.
>> Ange Maher: I think people looking in on our lives could only see that he had a few
cuts and abrasions, but they didn't see the real trauma that was happening.
>> John Maher: We had a lot of things to do. We had to try and pull our lives together.
I was in intensive care for a while, in hospital for a while.
And thankfully I had Income Protection
>> Ange Maher: As a wife and mother of four kids, we were lucky that John was in the insurance
industry. If we weren't, I don't think we would've looked at Income Protection.
Which, looking back now, was the most important thing that we did have, and it kicked-in pretty
well straight away.
>> John Maher: It was to be paid right through till age sixty-five. It was non-cancellable,
it was a level premium, and it was CPI linked.
And I can categorically tell everyone who is listening to this, that Income Protection
saved our family and our lives financially.
[TAL logo]