When Ali France lost her leg trying to save her newborn from a car accident, it was not her own pain that caused her greatest anguish, but the horrible thought that she had failed. lose his son.
Sadly, although the mother and her son Zac miraculously survived the devastating accident in 2011, she had to face heartbreak again – this time with a much more tragic outcome.
Former Labor politician Ms France has shared her heartbreak after her eldest son Henry – Zac’s brother – died of leukemia four weeks ago at the Royal Brisbane Hospital.
Henry was completing his HSC when he was diagnosed with the illness in November 2022 and has spent the majority of the last 18 months in hospital.
Ali France (pictured left) took to social media on Friday to reveal that her eldest son Henry had died of leukemia.
Henry had been battling the deadly disease since November 2022 and lost his father Clive to cancer in September last year.
“Henry did everything he was supposed to do to be a survivor, to stay with us,” tweeted Ms. France, a mother of two.
“Our medical professionals did everything they could, but all the love and medicine in the world wasn’t enough.”
Ms France said every day since she lost her son had seemed like a year.
“He was loud (in the best way), so funny, hopeful and so loving. I can’t wait for him to say ‘I love you mom’ to me again,” she said.
“He would watch his friends go to school, college and work from his hospital bed, cheering them on. He simply accepted what was in front of him – he was the definition of courageous.
Ms France added that her son was crazy about sport, loving everything from cricket to football to the NRL.
“His glass was always overflowing with life and energy. He was a loyal friend, he always apologized, he had an opinion on everything, he never stopped laughing and he moved with great speed and enthusiasm, which sometimes got him into trouble.” she declared.
Ms France also lost her ex-husband Clive to cancer in September last year.
Henry was battling cancer at the same time and was taken by ambulance to say goodbye to his father.
The former Labor politician lost her leg in a horror accident in 2011.
“We were all broken. He (Clive) held on long enough for Henry to recover well enough to spend more time with his father, in another hospital,” Ms France said.
Ms France said her youngest son, Zac, tragically lost his father and older brother within the space of six months.
“Right now, it’s raw, brutal devastation, but I hope we move to a space where we focus more on honoring Henry,” she said.
“I would do anything to spend more time with my Henry.”
In the accident that cost her a leg in May 2011, Ms France was waiting for a lift at the shops at Brisbane’s High Point Plaza when an out-of-control car hit her.
The elderly man driving crashed into the mother, who was pushing her son in a stroller at the time, pinning him against another car.
Milliseconds before the car hit her, she tried to push her son Zac, who was in the stroller, out of harm’s way.
The collision severed an artery in her left leg, resulting in the loss of a limb, but it wasn’t her own injuries that haunted her in the days and weeks following the accident.
Henry (left) and his younger brother Zac France are seen with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese
“No one realizes that it wasn’t so much the fact that I lost my leg, but my biggest fear of almost losing a child that was the biggest problem for me,” she told the press agency. Mail-Mail in 2018.
“What a lot of people don’t know is that while I was trying to push Zac out of the way, I didn’t succeed and he ended up under the car. He was very lucky.
A mother carrying her own newborn faced chaos moments after the collision, placing her own baby on the ground as she reached under the car and pulled Zac to safety.
Apart from a deep burn on one of his legs caused by one of the car’s tires, he was largely unharmed.
Two men passing by put the car – whose driver was still pressing the accelerator – into neutral and physically lifted the vehicle.
She then started bleeding and was only saved by the quick-thinking men who tore her leg open with one of their shirts.
Ms France ran unsuccessfully against Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to contest the marginal seat of Dickson in the 2019 federal election.