It was an horrific accident.
My husband, an accomplished architectural blacksmith, was on the home straight of an installation in Hāwea.
Suddenly the disc on the angle grinder he was using exploded and embedded itself in his face.
While it miraculously missed his brain, eyes and teeth, it was to be a life-changing event.
In the direct aftermath of the accident, the doctor at Wānaka Medical Centre did all he could for my husband before his ambulance ride to Dunedin Public Hospital for specialist treatment.
As we followed by car in a state of shock, I distinctly remember reassuring my parents-in-law.
They were visiting from their home overseas and knew nothing of our hospital.
I confidently told them there would be a highly skilled surgeon awaiting their son at Dunedin Hospital.
I had no idea who it would be but I was sure in that knowledge, as ours is a teaching hospital.
As I was reassuring myself and everyone around me on the journey to Dunedin, including our 8-year-old daughter, a surgeon at Dunedin Hospital was simultaneously prepping his team for my husband's arrival.
Daryl Tong is an outstanding maxillofacial surgeon with experience in far-flung war zones.
That day he worked miracles putting my loved one's face back together.
We will always be grateful for those extraordinary skills on that dark day.
You would never know my husband had suffered such a catastrophic accident as there is barely a trace of his shocking injuries now, such were the skills of the surgeon.
However, our world would once again be turned upside-down in a medical sense, two years later.
At the age of 55, my husband was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. It was devastating news.
As we've navigated this difficult journey as a family over the past 15 years, what has helped us through has been the world-class medical care received and the genuine compassion shown by the doctors and nurses at Dunedin Hospital.
We have no doubt that the highly skilled health professionals we've encountered, have stayed here, come back here or have been attracted here to Ōtepoti from all over the world because Dunedin Hospital is a tertiary hospital in a very liveable city.
Every family has experienced life's highs and lows through the hospital; the middle of the night visits to the emergency department with a sick child, the specialist appointments hoping for good news, and the arrival and passing of loved ones.
Dunedin Hospital is central to all of our lives.
What any of us wants at these times is for our loved ones to receive the very best of care in the best of facilities.
I know how important that was for our family the day of the accident and following the diagnosis of a life-changing illness.
We already have the highly skilled health professionals here in Dunedin, but they will only stay if the facilities are up to modern standards. The facilities are far from adequate now.
The piles are waiting, the tradies are waiting, the health professionals are waiting and, above all, the people are waiting.
We are all waiting on the government to deliver on its promise to build the new Dunedin hospital.
The people of Otago and Southland deserve a modern regional tertiary hospital to care for them in their time of need.
We expect and will settle for nothing less.
It's time to get cracking and build the hospital and build it now.
The lives of our loved ones are at stake.
Christine Garey is a Dunedin city councillor. This is the first in a series of personal stories on how important Dunedin Hospital is to the people of the South.
