Padraig Collins for Daily Mail Australia
4:06 p.m. June 8, 2024, updated 4:28 p.m. June 8, 2024
An Australian woman left paralyzed from the chest down after a Singapore Airlines flight hit wild turbulence has recalled the horror moment she realized she couldn’t move her legs.
Kerry Jordan (52) and her husband Keith Davis (59) they were on their way home from a holiday in Europe when the plane plunged 54 meters in just 4.6 seconds.
The Boeing 777-300ER with 211 passengers, including 56 Australians and 18 crew members, was flying from London to Singapore on May 23 when it hit an air pocket. A 73-year-old British man died of a suspected heart attack.
Speaking from the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH), Ms Jordan, who is unlikely to ever walk, said she was trying to fasten her seatbelt on her way to the toilet when the turbulence suddenly hit.
“Literally everything started shaking so much … all I remember was being in the air and everything was absolutely silent and then I was on the floor,” she told The Advertiser.
Ms Jordan, a dance teacher at Mitcham Girls High School, said the turbulence was “absolutely violent”.
“I think it was a shock to me too when it all happened – within 10 seconds I was trying to put my seat belt back on,” she recalled.
Mr. Davis was not wearing a seat belt when the plane crashed. He suffered a shoulder injury and blurred vision.
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He didn’t know if his wife was still alive when she fell to the floor.
“She never moved and it was so unnatural and I was just horrified,” he said.
Another passenger asked Ms Jordan if she could move her legs, but she could not. He remembers the man then saying he might have a potential spinal injury.
She remained on the floor for the rest of the flight and was transferred to the intensive care unit of a hospital in Bangkok after the plane landed.
Ms Jordan was medically evacuated from Bangkok to Adelaide on May 29 and is now in the RAH Spinal Unit at Daw Park where she faces months of rehabilitation.
The spinal fracture is at the C7-T1 segment connecting the neck to the upper back, and Ms Jordan feels “pretty much nothing from the chest down”.
Although she can move her arms, she is unable to use her hands.
She said she could no longer do basic tasks, including feeding while brushing her teeth or using her mobile phone was out of the question.
“I think that’s the hardest part, not feeling most of your body,” she said.
The couple are now considering their legal options over the injuries they sustained on the Singapore Airlines flight.
Former politician Nick Xenophon is part of the international legal team working with the victims who were on board Singapore Airlines flight SQ321.
Mr Xenophon said “no stone will be left unturned to get to the truth about what really happened … this incident will have far-reaching consequences for airlines that do everything they can to avoid death and serious injury.”