Dawn Fraser’s loved ones have revealed they feared the worst after the Olympic legend suffered a nasty fall at her Noosa home last week that landed her in ICU with multiple injuries.
Speaking publicly for the first time, her daughter Dawn-Lorraine Fraser says the national treasure isn’t out of the woods yet.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Dawn Fraser’s loved ones open up on frightening ordeal.
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Normally very private, Dawn Fraser’s family has now opened up on a tortuous week.
“I didn’t know what was going to happen and I didn’t know if she was going to survive,” she told 7NEWS.
The 87-year-old swimming great tripped on an unfinished driveway at home, breaking her ribs and a major hip bone.
The family also thinks that her life may have been saved because she was home alone.
“If we had of been there we would have tried to get her up and as the doctor said would have been the most dangerous thing … ribs would have broken and punctured a lung or her heart or something,” Dawn-Lorraine said.
She was rushed to hospital where a question from an anaesthetist was shattering …. and has been burning Dawn-Loorraine’s ears.
”(They said) I want to know if I have to resuscitate her and I said, ‘Are you serious?’…,” Dawn-Lorraine said.
“Yes, you will resuscitate her; my mother is a fighter and you will make sure you do everything to save her.”
Fraser — considered one of Australia’s greatest sportspeople — was released from the ICU on Monday.
And Dawn-Lorraine Fraser has been by her bedside since the accident.
She said he mum was doing “so much better” and was walking.
But doctors had told her to slow down and take it easy.
“She has had a new hip, broken four ribs and has a gash in her left arm,” Dawn-Lorraine said.
“It’s been scary … I thought we were going to lose her and I was told by the doctor that we were probably going to have to face that and I couldn’t face that,” she said.
“Because even though she’s my mum I’ve always thought of her as being invincible.”
Dawn-Lorraine said as she fell, Fraser gouged her hand when she put it out to protect her face and landed directly on her hip and ribs, shattering them.
Despite the injuries, Fraser managed to use a mobile phone that she had on her to call friends of the family to come and help.
Swimming Australia released a statement on Monday, with CEO Rob Woodhouse wishing Fraser a speedy recovery.
“We have heard back from the family and as we understand Dawn is stable,” Woodhouse said.
“Dawn is an Australian living treasure — an icon of our sport — and we wish her a speedy, healthy and fully recovery.”
Fraser won eight Olympic medals over her spectacular career and held the world record in the 100m freestyle for 15 years.
She was crowned World Athlete of the Century at the World Sports Awards in 1999 and also became the first female to be elevated to legend in the Australian Sport Hall of Fame.
– With The Nightly
