Coping with the pain barrier

By Sarah Schwager
BUNYIP’S Carmen Mitchell has spent the past five years in and out of hospital after a horrific workplace accident in which she nearly lost her leg.
In 2001, Mrs Mitchell’s leg was left hanging by a thread of skin after an accident with a rotary hoe.
She had been using the hoe at a chicken farm in Nar Nar Goon when it slipped into reverse and mangled her leg.
Since then she has undergone numerous operations and plastic surgery.
Her last operation was just last week. She left hospital on Wednesday after an operation to remove a plate put in her leg two years ago.
But five years on she says she is doing a lot better.
“I’ve still got a lot of pain,” she said.
“But I’m just moving on and trying to get on with my life.”
Mrs Mitchell said while she could not work at the moment she was still keeping herself busy.
“I can’t even run. I haven’t been able to do anything,” she said.
She and her husband Colin have just started up their own business called Mitchco Excavations.
Mrs Mitchell helps out one day a week with the paperwork.
“I can get out a little. I just can’t do any activities,” she said.
She said she was unable to work because the surgery could put her out of action for up to 10 weeks at a time.
Mrs Mitchell said since her last operation she could not move around at all.
But she said her family had been really supportive.
“We’re all coping well. A lot better than what we were,” she said.
Mrs Mitchell’s daughter, Kelly, 20, studies economics and finance at university and her son Scott, 16, has his own signwriting business.
Mrs Mitchell said the family was working well together and looking forward to the future.
She said she was also looking forward to a summer where she could where a pair of shorts.
“I’m still a bit paranoid with my scars,” she said.