Donna Taylor was working at Kilburn Nursing Home doing a float shift in her role as a personal care attendant the night she injured her knee.

Donna, 41, was pushing a skip along the corridor, as a resident of the nursing home walked towards her. She pushed the skip out of the way to let the resident through, caught her left foot in the pedal, lost her balance and fell on her right knee.

Despite the pain, she reassured the resident who helped her up that she was fine. “I only had a short time left on my shift that night,” says Donna, who was training to be a nurse at the time. “So I decided to continue, even though it hurt.”

Donna filed an incident report and finished up for the night. “When I got home, my knee was all bruised and swollen. I went into work later and showed them, and the site manager told me to go to the doctor.”

The doctor told Donna to take a week off work, but even after a week her knee was still swollen and bruised. The doctor then sent Donna for an x-ray, but the seriousness of the injury was not apparent.

Four months later, with her knee still not improved, Donna was sent for an MRI scan to investigate the injury further. “It was then they realised I’d demolished it,” says Donna. The MRI showed up serious fractures. But as Donna had osteoarthritis in the knee from a netball injury, it could not be fixed by inserting a plate.

She was given an arthroscopy, and a screw from her previous operation was removed.

At first, she was on crutches, and then a walking stick – and she is aware she will have to have a total knee replacement sometime in the future.

“The worst moment was when the knee specialist told me I’d never work as a nurse,” says Donna, who had almost completed her training. “I was devastated.”

Her work as a carer was over too. “I felt totally worthless for a while,” she says.

It was her rehabilitation consultant who helped her to remain positive. “She helped me look at other options,” says Donna. She also helped her with filling in forms for workers’ compensation, and with setting up an account for her medications, paid for by WorkCover.

“My co-workers and site manager also helped me stay on the bright side,” she says. “I’d go into work to fill in a form or something, and they’d sit me down with a coffee and fill me in on what had been going on. They made me still feel a part of things.”

Donna, a single parent of two teenage girls, credits her daughters with being her lifeline. “It was rough on my kids. They had to cook, and do the housework and shopping. I wouldn’t have managed without them. If I’d been alone, I don’t know how I’d have coped.

“Some days I would cry all day,” says Donna. “But I’m stubborn. I’d tell myself to snap out of it. I’m determined to make my life as normal as it was before. I’d come to work in a wheelchair if I had to. I feel a lot better when I work. I hate staying home.”

Donna returned to work five months after the accident in an administrative role at a different nursing home. At first she did four hours a day, then increased her hours to 30 a week.

Despite her dreams of being a nurse ending so suddenly, Donna remains positive. Now, a year since the accident, she has just been cleared for full-time work.

“My aim is to do the best in my new role that I can now,” she says. “I love working with the residents though, so if I can find some kind of administrative position that allows me to do that in some way – like clinical documentation perhaps – that would be ideal.”

And a final word of advice?

“It’s so important to stay positive – and get as much help and support as you can.”