How A Magpie Helped A Family Heal

Sam and Cameron Bloom were on an adventure in Thailand with their three boys in 2013 when tragedy struck. The family was on a rooftop terrace and Sam leaned against the safety rail – unaware its supports had rotted away. She crashed to the concrete two storeys below, shattering two vertebrae in her spine and losing the use of her legs. Sam slipped into a dark depression. As Cameron tells Genevieve Gannon, salvation came in the form of a scruffy little bird named Penguin.

- Genevieve Gannon

It was immediate and forever life changing,” Cameron Bloom says of the accident that left his wife, Sam, twisted and bleeding on a concrete pavement four years ago and ultimately changed their family and lives.

“To this day, I remember looking back at one of our boys, who said, ‘Is Mum going to die?’ and seeing terror all over his face,” says Cameron, 45, a professional photographer.