At Home With..
LIAM DOWNES
AND MEAGHAN
CONFAIT
March 19, 2012 was a wet and windy day in Far
North Queensland. Liam Downes, had spoken to his
mum in Melbourne towards the end of the work
day, and explained he was eager to get back to
Cairns and the Martyn Street home he shared
with partner, Meaghan and their sons, Spencer
(2yo) and Fletcher (6 months). They were
renovating a Queenslander, and there was no
shortage of work to do.
A decision to do a small job in those wet
conditions essentially changed the family’s lives
forever.That simple error of judgement, with
Liam slightly overextending on a ladder, resulted
in his foot slipping and a fall of three metres to the
ground. He punctured a lung on the way down,
and when paramedics arrived, they incubated him
into an induced coma in the Cairns Base Hospital,
before he was airlifted to the Princess Alexandra
Hospital in Brisbane.
Liam’s mum, Pauline, received the second call from
the Far North that day. “I couldn’t make out what
Meaghan was saying. She was screaming. I thought
something had happened to Spencer.”
Liam had broken the third and fourth vertebrae of his
spine - C3 and C4, which typically results in extreme
breathing difficulties and loss of function from the
shoulders down.
Upon hearing the news, his family made their way
from Melbourne and New Zealand overnight. In
Brisbane, Liam spent 42 days in ICU, with the
assistance of a ventilation breathing device. The
entire family relocated to Brisbane to assist with
Liam’s recovery.
Meaghan, wrangling a toddler and breastfeeding her
youngest son, made intermittent trips back to Cairns,
where they had simply closed the door, leaving a
concrete slab and exposed steel poles on their
renovation project.
As so many business owners will attest, when you
are unable to work, it’s not so easy to just “close
shop”. Liam had spent so many years building the
reputation of the business, LJ’s Plumbing and Gas
Service, and he didn’t want to let his clients down. On
one of these trips back to Cairns, Meaghan had the
task of allocating the business’s scheduled jobs to
other tradespeople. It was at this time she met with
Michael Moore from Cairns Plumbing and Property
Management. Outside their Martyn Street home,
Meaghan thanked Michael for assisting them, and
briefly explained what had happened to Liam.
Michael and Liam were acquaintances through the
construction industry. Not close mates, but certainly
enough to give a friendly wave when they saw each
other. When Michael heard of Liam’s injury, he felt
compelled to help out. “I was flying back to Brisbane
that afternoon. By the time I got off the plane, the
Liam Downes Appeal had been formed.”
Words | Jules Steer
Images | Stella Adams Photography