7m flood peak at Lismore

In the process of developing my podcast, The Limb Shift, I’ve had the privilege of speaking with many individuals about their experiences with limb loss, but my conversation with Kath Tanner is one I find myself returning to constantly.

There is a groundedness in the way she discusses her “previous chapters” and the practicalities of a life interrupted by a freak accident on the M25 in London. Her story isn’t just one of survival; it’s a masterclass in shifting one’s mindset to find a “tribe” and a new way of being in the world.

Kath’s journey began with a moment of academic frugality. While travelling between conferences in Europe with her husband, Steve, they opted for a cheap twenty-seater airport bus instead of the train. A blown tyre on a trailing car sent the bus flipping across the motorway, and in an instant, Kath was “turned around like a bit of a concrete mixer inside”.

She speaks with such vivid clarity about the aftermath—the “amazing man, Dave,” a local who used first-aid training from twenty years prior to apply life-saving tourniquets, and the sound of saws removing seats to reach her. When she eventually woke up in Saint George’s Hospital, with tubes in her mouth, and unable to speak, she tried to use “Morse code with my eyes” to tell Steve she needed the tube out. It’s a moment of levity in a dark memory: “He just thought that I had a twitch in my eye”.

Perhaps the most surreal detail of her recovery was the use of leeches to aid blood circulation in a flap on her hand. Kath jokes that she felt she had “gone on a bit of a time snap back” to old-time London. But while her hands were a visible concern, she didn’t even realise she had lost her foot until the following day.

What strikes me most about Kath is her sheer force of will. Told she would be in a London hospital for at least three months, she gave herself five weeks. She had a son’s ninth birthday to get back for, and she refused to miss it. She is a firm believer that the brain can “help to heal” if you give it the right instructions.

She made it back to Australia three days before the birthday, though her homecoming was complicated by a serious infection that left her feeling like a “leper” in isolation. Yet, the comfort of her community and the unconditional love of her dog—who simply rested his head in her lap—provided the emotional ballast she needed to navigate the long months of rehab that followed.

Kath’s return to “normal” life wasn’t about reclaiming her old self, but about adapting. A former dancer, hockey, and cricket player, she was back on the hockey field in less than a year. She couldn’t sprint anymore, so she played defence and used her presence—and her “game face”—to stop younger players in their tracks. “I just played a different thing a different way and a different mindset,” she told me.

Eventually, the physical toll of playing field sports on a prosthetic led her to golf. It took “twenty-five years and one leg less” to finally join her husband on the course, but she found more than just a sport; she found her “tribe” in amputee golf. For Kath, the game is almost secondary to the shared lived experience. She describes her fellow amputee golfers as a family who would “give you their right leg if you needed it”.

Now living in regional Tasmania, Kath faces the practical hurdles many of us in the amputee community know well—the struggle to find experienced physiotherapists or exercise physiologists in a regional setting. She still travels all the way to Wollongong to see her prosthetist, emphasizing that a “good relationship” and a “pedantic” practitioner are non-negotiable for mobility.

She is currently the only woman playing amputee golf competitively in Australia, a statistic she is working hard to change. She recently hosted a clinic in Melbourne that saw fourteen women attend, offering “hope for more to come out”.

Fifteen years into her journey, Kath’s perspective is one of profound gratitude. She walked away from the “academic ladder” to prioritise her children, her friends, and her new passion for wildlife rescue. She also reminds us to check in on our partners, noting that while she was “moving on,” her husband Steve needed his own therapy through writing to make sense of the trauma.

Her parting words during our chat serve as a perfect mantra for The Limb Shift: “Life is damn good no matter how many bits you’ve got missing. But it’s what you make of it”.

This is likely the last story I’ll share for a while, as I’m about to head off on an overseas holiday. When I get back I’ll resume work, will share more stories, and start to work solidly towards the podcast launch.