Get well soon!

Prior to my departure from Melbourne nearly a year ago, I had a lot of farewell lunches, coffees and dinners. But one of them was really memorable, not because of how fun it was, it didn't happen at all for a very tragic reason. It was my last day at Melb Uni and a farewell lunch was planned at the nearby pub. When I turned up for work, the lab (and the entire corridor in fact) was unusually "still". Nothing was happening and hardly anyone was around. I thought it must've been the earliness of the day. As the minutes passed, the atmosphere didn't seem to change. A labmate came into work and quietly informed me of a night out went wrong. A group of people from the department was out for drinks the previous night and maybe a drink too many, a post-doc from our lab fell backwards down the stairs. The ambulance arrived and rushed her to the hospital and immediately into ER. The morning that I heard the news, she was transferred to the ICU pending on brain surgery to relief pressure from the injured brain. My heart sank and any celebratory mood was long gone. My boss went straight to the hospital to try understand the situation and try to comfort the boyfriend. My friend and her partner are from Scotland and their families were flying into Melbourne as soon as they possibly could. As the news progressed through the corridor and the department, our much-loved collegue and friend was sorely missed. Our thoughts and prayers were with her and her family all the way. A few months passed and she woke up from her coma and slowly adjusted to her new life. A year since the incident, she will not become a scientist again, she will not regain her old self again. People around her can easily sense a different person has emerged as she will now have to live her life her way.