Superhero Mother needs your help to lay her tetraplegic daughter to rest and support her family

On the morning of 2nd July Maree (Mum) went into Shelley’s room to attend to Shelley because she was complaining of severe pain all over her body. This pain escalated extremely quickly resulting in a sudden stroke due to intensely high blood pressure. Shelley became unconscious and unresponsive, Maree immediately proceeded to conduct CPR on her until the Air Ambulance arrived to rush her to hospital. As one could imagine this would be an extremely frightening and scary ordeal to go through, especially as Blair was also home at the time, to which he tried his utmost to help out and also watch Dylan (Shelley’s son).

On arrival to Nelson Hospital brain scans and other tests were conducted which showed a very large brain bleed in the middle of Shelley’s brain. From word of this hopes of Shelley making a recovery were grim. If she was to undergo a successful surgery it was likely she’d be blind, deaf and immobile. Inevitably the bleed became too much. Shelley was pronounced brain dead and was being assisted by life support, only being able to breathe by assistance of machine.

Jacque had already immediately caught the first flight to Nelson on word of the tragic news, thanks to the incredible support of her boss Phil Murphit who she would like to acknowledge.

Wednesday 3rd July Shelley’s life support was turned off and at 3.50pm she was announced dead.

It hurts me to see the devastating and crippling pain and hurt this beautiful family is enduring due to such an unexpected tragedy.

.....SHELLEY UTIGER, HER LIFE AND FAMILY.....

Shelley, 31 years of age and the oldest of 3 other siblings was tetraplegic, being paralyzed from the breasts down as she was hit by a drunk driver at the saddening young age of 2 years old. from that moment onward, she would never be able to live a normal life most of us take for granted becoming wheelchair bound. Such a severe incident as expected, came with many surgeries, health and quality of life complications which would ripple throughout the rest of her years which consecutively turned her and her mother’s life Maree upside down.

Maree became her full-time carer, which in turn became her only source of income for her and her family for the duration of Shelley’s life.

Maree went on to have 3 more beautiful children Jacque 27, Blair 17 who lives with Cerebral Palsy due to post-birth complications, and Chanel 15. Raising 4 children two of whom with disabilities is no easy feat. All minus Jacque live under mother duck’s roof in Motueka/Riwaka, with Jacque residing in Chch.

Maree is the most loving and caring mother who ALWAYS puts her kids first no matter what, she is super protective over her babies and will do whatever it takes to protect and look after them.

At the age of 16 Shelley met Hamish who would become her life long partner, Hamish tells me he loved her as soon as he saw her exactly as she was wheelchair or no wheelchair, she was the one for him.

10 years later they were gifted with the miracle of their only child Dylan, now 5 years old. Dylan is severely autistic, he is one super cool kid. Shelley was one determined and incredibly independent mother, parenting and raising Dylan from the seat of her wheelchair. Her life and her world solely revolved around proving as much love as she could to Dylan.

Maree provided care for Shelley and will continue to provide care for Blair, Chanel and Dylan day in and day out, there are no days off.

This family is as solid as a rock, they trust, love and depend on one another, operating as one unit, who have always had each other to rely on. You can only imagine how distraught they are now losing Shelley, who from such a tragic accident as an infant tightly knitted this family together.

Maree and her family have been dealt an extremely tough hand in life with 2 children of her own being disabled and a disabled grandson who she has always supported, but heroically Maree has always continued to preserve always putting her children first because she truly is a superwoman. Maree has now lost her first-born child, which I cannot even comprehend to know or understand what that feels like.

With no life insurance due to Shelley’s disability or funeral cover and the fact that Maree has now lost her only source of income due to being the sole carer for Shelley, this family is really going to struggle financially as there are no provisions to cover costs of the funeral and ongoing expenses to support the family. PLEASE any donations would be gratefully and graciously accepted to help cover funeral costs and relieve immediate financial pressures and hopefully enough can be raised to help support Dylan as he gets older and requires further financial assistance.