Lambie calls Turnbull a liar, page-45

Running your own attack add Cerhob


But just five years ago, Lambie was an overweight disability support pensioner topping the scales at 102 kilograms who says she tried to kill herself on a drunken night out.

In August, 2009, she walked into oncoming traffic. The car hit her, leaving her with a scar down her face, two missing teeth and a hospital stay.
“Yeah, I remember about 30 seconds before the car hit me. I just remember walking down the road thinking, ‘This is it, this it.’ You know, I had enough,’’ she says.
“I’d just had enough of being an empty human shell for months. I was on a lot of medication and obviously I was drinking and I just thought, ‘What’s the point? I am of no use to anyone. I felt like a useless human being’.”

But the suicide attempt proved a turning point, helping her find God and forcing the Department of Veterans Affairs to give her the medical support she had been denied after suffering a back injury in the 1990s.
“I lost my faith before I walked out in front of a car. And I realised that’s the last thing you’ve got left. I sincerely believe God has given me a second chance at life,’’ she said.
After the incident she was admitted to a Hobart rehabilitation clinic for months to treat her depression and alcohol abuse.
“I wouldn’t define it as an alcoholic. I wasn’t drinking everyday. I was probably drinking five days a week but because of the medication I was on you’re probably only looking at a bottle of wine,’’ she says.
“But that was enough. So, I don’t know, how do you define alcoholic? It was alcohol abuse and I was abusing it.’’
Along the way, her recovery included losing 40 kilograms in just over a year as she worked towards managing her chronic back pain.
“I had put on 40 odd kilos over those 10 years. I had hit 100 kilos, or 102. I am about 62 kilos now I guess. It only took me 14 months so I guess that’s the discipline.’’
The original injury was sustained in 1997 after she spent two days carrying a 40 kilogram pack in a bush skills course that left her in debilitating pain.
In 1999, taxpayers even funded her breast reduction in the hope it would help ease the pressure on her back.
“That was back when I was still in the armed forces because they were hoping maybe that might take a bit of (pressure) off,’’ she says.

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