Aussie severely injured on Singapore Airlines flight breaks silence

An Australian woman left paralysed from the chest down after a Singapore Airlines flight struck wild turbulence has recalled the horror moment she realised she couldn’t move her legs. 

Kerry Jordan, 52, and her husband Keith Davis, 59, were on their way home from a holiday in Europe when the plane plunged 54metres in just 4.6seconds.  

The Boeing 777-300ER plane carrying 211 passengers, including 56 Australians and 18 crew, was travelling from London to Singapore on May 23 when it struck an air pocket. A 73-year-old British man died from a suspected heart attack.

Speaking from Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH), Ms Jordan, who is unlikely to ever walk again, said she was trying to put on her seatbelt after a trip to the bathroom when the turbulence suddenly hit.

‘Literally everything just started shaking so much… all I remember was being up in the air and everything was absolutely silent and then I was on the floor,’ she told The Advertiser.

Ms Jordan, a dance teacher at Mitcham Girls High School, said the turbulence was ‘absolutely violent’. 

‘I think that the shock for me as well was when it all happened – within 10 seconds of me trying to get my seatbelt back on,’ she recalled. 

Mr Davis did not have his seatbelt on when the aircraft plummeted. He suffered a shoulder injury and blurred vision.

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He didn’t know if his wife was still alive when she fell to the floor.

‘She never moved and that was so unnatural, and I was just horrified,’ he said.

Another passenger asked Ms Jordan if she could move her legs, but she couldn’t. She remembers the man then saying she may have a potential spinal injury.

She remained on the floor for the rest of the flight and was taken to intensive care at a Bangkok hospital after the plane landed. 

Ms Jordan was medically evacuated from Bangkok to Adelaide on May 29 and is now in the RAH spinal unit in Daw Park where she faces months of rehabilitation. 

The break in her spine is at the C7-T1 segment connecting the neck to the upper back and Ms Jordan can feel ‘nothing from basically the chest down’.

Though she can move her arms, she is not able to use her hands.

She said she can no longer do basic tasks including feeding herself while brushing her teeth or using her mobile phone is out of the question.

‘I think that’s the hardest, not being able to feel most of my body,’ she said.

The couple are now considering their legal options over the injuries they sustained on the Singapore Airlines flight. 

Former politician Nick Xenophon is part of an international legal team working with victims who were onboard Singapore Airlines flight SQ321. 

Mr Xenophon said ‘no stone will be left unturned to get to the truth of what actually happened… this incident will have widespread ramifications in terms of airlines doing everything possible to avoid death and serious injury.’