Jason Crewe and Tessa Swain (now Tessa Crewe) cruised down a winding road on their motorbikes, basking in the blue sky and verdant peaks as they sped toward their next destination: Boriam Temple. They slowed at a left turn and patiently waited for a clear path. Just as they decided to proceed, an SUV roared around the corner and slammed into them in an unexpected and jarring instant.
Mrs. Crewe began her career as a pharmacist in Australia, but her desire to change things up brought her to Korea, where she taught in an English academy. “I needed to earn money because I had big student loans from pharmacy degrees. So I moved to Korea and lived in Busan. I taught English at an English academy for a year.” said Mrs. Crewe.
Mr. and Mrs. Crewe frequently biked around town to explore the coastline. “Mr. Crewe and I met in Korea. We were living in a new country, so we wanted to explore the countryside, get to know the people, and try the food,” Mrs. Crewe said.
Mrs. and Mr. Crewe had ridden the motorbike often before the accident with no issues. “Cars were expensive, so Mr. Crewe got a bike,” said Mrs. Crewe. “If we wanted to try and visit different parts of the coast or go somewhere unique it was easier because we had our own transportation rather than having to bus, subway, and go on a walk.” Because of this, the accident came as much more of a surprise.
“The SUV that hit us was speeding and coming from around a corner, so we couldn’t see them and they couldn’t see us. We had just started our turn, and the SUV hit us — the driver didn’t even have time to hit the brakes, so he hit us at over 100 km/hour,” said Mrs. Crewe.
The front windscreen of the SUV shattered as Mr. Crewe collided with it head-first. Shards of glass cascaded like rain. In a chaotic twist, the rear of the motorcycle shot upward and hurled Mrs. Crewe into the air. For a brief moment, she seemed to float, suspended in time. Then, a horrifying cacophony erupted as the couple’s bodies struck the pavement, the sickening crunch of broken bones mingled with piercing screams that shattered the once joyful atmosphere of their outing.
“Mr. Crewe was almost instantly in ‘stupor coma’ and had bleeding on the brain,” said Mrs. Crewe. “I bounced when I landed on the road, and this broke my back, and my pelvis broke in three places, meaning it broke in two. I also broke many other bones, including my fingers and ribs.”
They were immediately rushed to a local hospital, only to discover that it lacked the facilities to care for their potentially fatal injuries. They got back in the ambulance and the ambulance floored the pedal as they zoomed toward the next nearest hospital. To their dismay, they also didn’t have the proper instruments to save them.
“In the end we were taken back to Busan, to go to Pusan National University Hospital, where Mr. Crewe was admitted to the intensive care unit and I went to emergency surgery, where they drilled three pins into either side of the pelvis, and held my pelvis together with a device called an external fixator,” said Mrs. Crewe.
Mrs. Crewe recovered in the ward directly after her surgery and was eventually discharged after a month. However, Mr. Crewe spent his first few weeks post-injury in the intensive care unit because of his critical condition and spent longer.
“After the injury, I had a few days of recovery, and within a month, they said I was allowed to get up and start moving around. I wasn’t allowed to move around before that because I had broken my back. From that point on, it was first assisted walking with crutches, and then I came in and did physical therapy,” she said.
Although they had a close call to death in Korea, they stayed in Busan for another 10 years. “The accident was just unlucky. Everything else about our experiences in Korea had been positive until that point, so neither Mr. Crewe nor I wanted the accident to be our last memory of Korea.”
After they had their Lumin, their first child, they moved to Canada, as she wanted her children to be able to experience the world.
Fast-forward 10 years, and they returned to Korea and joined the DIS community. “When Mr. Crewe and I decided that we wanted to go overseas and show our girls the world, Korea was a no-brainer. We definitely wanted to come back here. We love the people, we love the food, and we know it’s safe,” she said.
Even after coming close to death in Korea, her unwavering love for the country and the people made her return here. Thankfully, both Mr. and Mrs. Crewe are accepted into DIS as elementary teachers. Her decisions to return show her determination and the ability to turn hardship into opportunities. She was meant for DIS; Determined Intellectual and Successful.
