Girl left in vegetative state after tap electrocution speaks first word
An 11-year-old Perth girl has spoken her first word almost a month after doctors predicted she would remain in a vegetative state following a severe electric shock at her family's public housing property.
Doctors had said Denishar Woods was left with a catastrophic brain injury when she was shocked with up to 230 volts AC by touching a garden tap at the Beldon property on March 3.
But her mother Lacey Harrison says Denishar is defying the odds. The girl has uttered her first word, "mum", since the incident.
Denishar is now breathing on her own after being taken off a ventilator more than two weeks ago, has been moved into a wheelchair and is opening her eyes in response to voices.
Ms Harrison said she had been waiting for this moment.
“It gives me a sign there’s still a voice in there,” she said on Wednesday.
Ms Harrison says Denishar may be sent home from hospital in as little as three months but will still need full-time care.
The mother-of-seven says she knows she may never get back the little girl she remembers but hopes her family will soon be moved into state disability housing.
“I don’t know if Homeswest [housing authority] will be able to get a house big enough. We need one which can fit Denishar’s trolley in the shower,” she said.
Money has been tight for the family, especially after the children’s father, Royal Woods, died in July 2016.
Ms Harrison says it has been “all hands on deck” with extended family and friends offering help, including taking on her two youngest sons while their exhausted mother juggles school runs with long days spent at the children’s hospital.
She feels guilt every time she leaves her daughter’s bedside and is often woken by night terrors, remembering the feeling of being frozen, electricity burning through her body as she lay trapped by the current against a car unable to help her daughter.
“I thought I was dead," she said.
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An EnergySafety investigation is underway into the incident and director Michael Bunko has already said he believed the tragedy was likely caused by a fault in the neutral conductor supplying power to the property.
Ms Harrison is considering seeking legal compensation but says money cannot make her daughter recover.
More than $12,600 has been raised by a GoFundMe campaign for Denishar.
