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Charge nurse Colin Woodhouse suffered a seizure and a traumatic head injury while on duty on the neurology ward at Christchurch Hospital. 12 Headlines FROM NEUROLOGY NURSE TO PATIENT A story from both sides of the counter I t was nonetheless a terrifying ordeal for Colin Woodhouse, the ward’s charge nurse, who was on a round with a neurosurgeon when he “went down like a tree”. ”Falling backwards, my head hit the concrete floor and people all over the ward heard a loud crack,” Colin remembers being told. In the most unfortunate of circumstances, he had suffered two neurological events – an epileptic seizure and a traumatic brain injury caused by his fall. While it was the second time Colin had experienced a seizure, eight years had passed since his first event, and he wasn’t expecting to have another. He has been sharing his inspiring journey from caring for patients with brain injuries and neurological disorders, to being a patient on the other side of the counter, as a guest speaker at various healthcare conferences and events around New Zealand. “During my training I met patients with all sorts of neurological issues. Frontal head injuries with personality changes, expressive and receptive dysphasia, strokes, multiple sclerosis and many others. All of these went on to my list of things I didn’t want to get, but I found them fascinating,” he explains. “And then here I was. I had a fractured skull, cerebral bleed, coup – contra-coup injury, mid-line shift and lacerated scalp.” Colin was originally admitted to ICU before being transferred to the stroke unit.... “not because I’d had a stroke but it was felt that it would be odd for me to be looked after on my own ward. It would have been odd for the staff too.” There could be worse places to have a seizure than while working as a nurse on the neurology ward at Christchurch Hospital. ”Falling backwards, my head hit the concrete floor and people all over the ward heard a loud crack...”