A life in letters: Fischbacher family

Dr Eric Fischbacher was a GP friend of my father. He and his wife Mary had four children – Colin, Esther, Fiona and Moira. In Down but not out (1997) he describes a serious accident affecting 16-year-old Esther and its aftermath. When the family was on holiday at a camp site in the north of Scotland in July 1975, Esther suffered carbon monoxide poisoning due to defective equipment in a shower block. When she was discovered by her father, she appeared to be dead.

Eric Fischbacher ‘called out to God; a desperate appeal, not so much to make her live again as to enable me to cope with this unbelievable catastrophe.’ He continues ‘As I prayed, I started a despairing chest compression – I had to try. Air escaped passively from her mouth as it will from the chest of a corpse pressed in this way, but after this single action she took a breath, and then another. I yelled, “She’s not dead!”’

Eric’s book records the impact of the accident on what was a profoundly Christian family. The day before leaving for the holiday, Esther had prayed ‘I don’t just want to have a happy life, Lord. I want a life that will have real meaning in it, and will be pleasing to You.’

Very evident in the story is the love which bound the family together; their faith that God was with them in the darkness; their sense of God’s supporting presence; the verses from the Bible which spoke into their lives and nourished hope; their certainty that they could entrust Esther to God’s care; their growing conviction that despite the grim medical prognosis Esther would be restored to them; their questions about the accident and its deeper causes – was their some element of satanic attack in what had happened?

The books also highlights Eric and Mary’s refusal to give up, despite the fact that at times there seemed to be little hope; the level of support they received from Christian friends and from professionals; the widespread prayer for Esther not just by people who knew the family but by many who had heard of her injuries through news reports.

Immediately following the accident, Esther’s parents took her to the hospital in Golspie from where she was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness where she remained unconscious. 12 days later, stabilised but still in a coma she was moved to Culduthel Hospital, situated in woodlands on the outskirts of Inverness. There, on the following day, Friday 31^st July Esther returned to consciousness.

This was the start of her long struggle to cope with the consequences of her accident. Mobility issues were addressed first; later she had to painstakingly re-learn things which she had lost due to the damage to her brain – concepts of number, and spatial awareness; and throughout she struggled with short-term memory problems. In addition, Esther was troubled emotionally by the dark shadow of the crisis in the shower room.

As in the period immediately following the accident, so in this long journey towards recovering what had been lost, some experts felt that little amelioration could be expected. But again, due to Esther’s courage and tenacity, the unwavering support of the rest of the family, and above all, as they would say God’s grace and love. Esther’s skills developed to the point where she was able to live independently. It is an inspiring story.

I came into close contact with this family a couple of years after Esther’s accident. I was working at the time in the Scripture Union Bookshop in Falkirk near where the Fischbachers lived in Brightons. Initially on starting the job I had lodged with a lady in Polmont. When her ill-health brought this arrangement to an end, I lacked the gumption and maturity to find a flat of my own, and went back to live with my parents in Carluke, from where I commuted each day to Falkirk. When winter came, the threat of snow made the cross-country journey problematic.

But in the event I was greatly blessed by one local family who invariably rang me at the shop on potentially snowy days asking if I’d like to stay over with them – the Fischbachers. In that home I saw how joyful Christian family life could be. There were the jokes at meal times – I remember someone once commenting that the politician Airey Neave’s name sounded like ‘Hairy Knees’; there were the loudspeakers scattered around the house connected to record players by long cables so that folk could listen to their music wherever they happened to be; there were the times Eric’s two younger daughters sang together in front of the flickering fire accompanied by guitar

Jesus, how lovely you are!

You shine like the morning star,
Jesus, how lovely you are;

there were the stories of everyday practical concern showed by members of the family to others on a regular basis; there were nights when travel was impossible because the roads were thick with snow, and we’d be snug in front of the fire and Eric would say ‘The snow doesn’t matter when I’ve got all my family safe under my roof.’ I’d lie in bed at night, utterly secure, and listen as outside in the cold the snowploughs cleared the road as far down as the house in case Eric had to visit patients in the middle of the night, and the yellow light on top of the cab pulsed on the bedroom wall. I do not think I had ever before felt so loved, so secure as I did under the Fischbachers’ roof.

Another thing linking me to the Fischbacher’s story in that in February 2012 my family moved into the house in Inverness where my parents lived in their final years. It is one of a cluster of houses and flats surrounded by the Culduthel woods, in the grounds once occupied by Culduthel Hospital where Esther came out of coma.

It somehow links me to the story to know that that miracle took place yards from here, that I live surrounded by the same trees which Eric describes Esther watching from the hospital verandah in her first days of consciousness. It makes this something of a holy place. And yet no doubt many miracles took place over the years at Culduthel Hospital, and in a sense every place is a holy place, a place of miracle, a place where God is present and active.