Saving Lotte Sullivan | Collingwood/Carlton

128: 3 Days, 72 Hours

Was there ever a time during your life where you honestly, truly believed you were going to die? What happened? How did it feel?

Quite a few times, actually. Growing up in an abusive household with an abusive father, I think all three of us believed we'd sooner end up dead from one of his rages. I've spent years running from him - he's chased me in cars, on foot, online. The first separate time, was when the Northern Hospital induced me and I had to give birth to my stillborn son - I still remember the excruciating pain, and the mental torture that accompanied it. And when I gave birth to my twins, I did die - I knew I was dying in that abandoned suite at the MCG, I could literally feel life ebbing out of my reach. I died on the way to the hospital in an ambulance and had to be revived, the twins were under a lot of stress too. There's been so many times. When my spleen decided to rupture in my twenties, because my parents had never followed up with the specialists for our familial blood disorder - and I was left with days to live. When my husband died, I definitely believed I would die too - how could I do it without him, how could I raise the kids without their father? Over time you learn that while it's horrendous, the worst thing in life imaginable has happened to you...you get over it. You move on. You find new things to keep you up at night, to put you back together - you find out who you really are. And I'm happy to say, while sitting here with you, in my thirties - I did figure out who I am - and I don't want to lose her ever again.

Yeah - when my dad died, my mother and I - we were both suffering so bad. Not only did we lose my father, mum's husband - but we also lost our house, our main source of income - we had nothing. We struggled to buy food. We had to live with my grandparents and mum had to work three jobs a week. I definitely thought I'd die from that unimaginable, excruciating pain that my dad had done that to himself - he'd taken himself out. I can say the same in 2023 - when my wife's abusive father was stalking and harassing me and even showed up at my workplace with a gun. I hid for months. And then there was the final time when I did feel that true, paralysing fear - the car accident. When she and I were driving in the early hours of the morning, and another car hit from her side - killing her immediately on impact, and then the next car slammed into my side, and that was it. We hereby conduct this post mortem.

When my son almost died - I almost died, too. My husband had to jump in to save him - that neighbouring house had gone up in flames, and taken ours down with it. I had our daughter and I was forced out of the house with her - but my son, having the furthest room upstairs - we realised he hadn't come down, so my husband just dived into the flames to find him. Both of them became so sick, but they survived. I didn't think I would. While I was out the front in the middle of the street at 3am, on my knees in tears with Wren, thinking both of them would die...another neighbour - my brother in law and his daughter, running outside because they'd heard the noise, and watching my brother in law completely die inside when he realised his brother was inside the fire. I don't think any of us have ever fully recovered from that experience, but at least my husband can joke around that he's a firefighter and a life saver. 🙄

The moment when I realised it was long over - Ashlyn and I would never, ever be what we were again - and I was just forcing the relationship because I loved her. When she was crying every single day and night, desperate to end things but too polite to leave. When I eventually said enough, and she left with her son, running straight back to the one she really loved, the one she wanted to be with all along. It hurt. The media made a mess of the situation. I eventually settled down with my next wife, and we had more kids - but nothing ever stopped the hurt of what Ashlyn and Sam had done, losing the boy I thought was my son, and all the wasted years we could've been doing other things. Making that call - that felt like a death. Our relationship was broken beyond repair and so was I. So was she. Sam and Erin were so happy - but I knew Ashlyn and I weren't. Then staying friends with her - only to watch her get sicker and sicker, her husband having to help her just to walk, until she was....the day she left this earth, I felt a million different pieces of me die - the girl I first loved, gone. And my heart honestly hurt for Sam too, for Gin and Wren...Lotte, who'd already been through immense loss...the day Ashlyn's story ended, I died and became a whole new person. But it didn't feel right and it still doesn't.