About Amy

This is my story.

I am Amy Aquilini, I am a Traumatic Brain Injury Survivor from a small regional town, Ingham, North Queensland. Back in 2021, a memoir of my journey - STRONG - was released. This is my story.

In 2013, I almost had my life taken away from me when I had a quadbike accident in the very early hours of the morning back on September 14th 2013. My quadbike left the road and crashed smack, bang into a tree leaving me with a Glasco Coma Scale Score of three, the lowest possible score before death. I was barely breathing, and needing immediate medical care, thank god for the truck driver who noticed the light from my quadbike that was barely shining amongst the trees along the creek bank that ran parallel to a rural road in Ingham, North Queensland.

I ended up breaking 38 bones, had ruptured numerous internal organs, and ended up with a Traumatic Brain Injury. After I was stabilised by the medical team that was present at Ingham Hospital’s emergency department that morning, I was flown to The Townsville General Hospital where they could provide better medical care than a small rural hospital. I spent over two weeks in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), 2 months in the Surgical Wards and over a year in the rehabilitation ward. I had to completely retrain my brain, I had to learn even the simplest of tasks we do that most people take for granted, things like eating, walking, talking and basic personal hygiene care. It wasn’t easy, I threw a lot of tantrums due to frustration but never once did I say ‘Why me?’

It was touch and go for a long time until I started to learn how to be independent again. In the early stages, if my family and I were out shopping and I got separated I would have major panic attacks. Every day there was something else I had to learn to control my behaviours, any part of me that was affected by my accident and get back to living some quality of life. I’m still learning and now I have an added incentive because I have two little boys.

I have built my business for my family to allow us to live a life of choices. I still face many challenges every day, these include physical (limited use of my right arm), cognitive (My short-term memory was severely affected) not to mention emotional (my day can be a rollercoaster of emotions that I sometimes struggle to control).

Throughout my struggle, I was always determined that I was going to be a mum so I went on to have children and now spend my time striving to be the best mum I can be so that I can provide an adventurous and quality lifestyle and let them know that they can achieve anything they set their minds to.

Although I may peel a banana and hang out the washing a little differently than most able people and a 10-minute job like hanging the washing will take me 30 minutes I can still do it. Even with my two boys, there were many things I had to relearn how to do for instance buckling their car seats before they were big enough to do it on their own. Have you had to buckle a child into a car seat while they yell and scream because they don’t want to leave the park? Now imagine that one-handed. To this day I still struggle with pain and sleeping at night.

I struggled to remember most things before efficiently learning how to use a diary. Things started to fall into place when I finally figured out how to do things in my own way, it took quite some time but many years later I feel proud of the person and mother I am today.

Even though I have told the story of my accident and how I have rebuilt my life, that is not where my story will end. I will continue to spread my positive vibes and continue adding chapters to the book of my life. My goals are to spread my message across the country and teach others that it doesn’t matter where you are in your life, you can make the choice to become anything you wish to become.