Her mother Angela tells her story: 

It was November 15, 2005. Alanna was six and a half months old and had just learnt to sit up. She was rolling everywhere.

Just like every day, I put her down for her afternoon sleep in her cot.

The afternoon ticked by quickly and I soon went to wake her as she had slept much longer than usual.

When I entered her room time stopped.

 A screw had come loose on Alanna’s cot. She had silently slipped between the bars and suffocated.

Alanna had been gone quite a while when I found her. The triple zero operator quickly summoned local paramedics and professionally trained doctors to our door.

Together as a team they were able to restart her heart after a long 22-minutes of CPR performed on my kitchen table.

So began our long journey with the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne.

Four days after arriving, Alanna was brought out of an induced coma. It was only then we realised the full extent of her injuries.

Alanna had an acquired catastrophic hypoxic brain injury.

She had lost the ability to do almost everything. 

Alanna was motionless and silent, her eyes constantly rolled back in her head and she didn’t even know how to swallow.

The Royal Children’s Hospital became our home away from home and the acquired brain injury team working with us became our hope and new family.

Three weeks after her injury, there was talk of being discharged. Alanna was medically stable but there had been very little sign of brain recovery.

That night I was bathing Alanna and for the first time since her injury she cried.

It was short, maybe two to three seconds and more like a squawk, but for a brief moment it was there. My baby was born all over again and I cried with her.

Two days before Christmas we were discharged and came back home to Ararat.

Fast forward 10 years and we have spent many hours, days, weeks and months at the Royal Children’s Hospital.

Therapists have taught Alanna to eat, walk and talk.

Alanna attends the local primary school and continues to face daily challenges. Her determined personality is her greatest asset.