H y j l term eases Huxley’s painHefty jail term eases Huxley’s pain
Bellinda KontominasBellinda Kontominas In November 2005, Lauren Huxley was assaulted in her home and
left for dead. Miraculously, she survived. Ten years on, she chats
to Cosmo’s Lauren Sams about how everything is coming up roses
T
en years ago, Australia heard the name
Lauren Huxley for the first time... On
November 9, 2005, the then-18-year-
old was brutally assaulted in her own
home, by a stranger named Robert Black
Farmer. Farmer attacked her with a set
of fibro cutters – basically two iron poles. She was
doused with petrol, which would leave her with
chemical burns, and the house her parents had
lived in for 25 years was set alight. Left for dead,
with 60 fractures to her skull, Lauren was given
less than a five per cent chance of survival when
police officers arrived. Experts at the scene said
that her injuries were consistent with car crash
victims who had not worn seat belts and were
ejected through the windscreen. Before a second,
life-saving surgery, her heartbroken parents hastily
arranged for her to be baptised. She spent 30 days
in intensive care and it was 50 days after the attack
before she could swallow food again. The NSW
Police Commissioner at the time, Ken Moroney,
called it “the worst attack I have seen in my 40
years as a police officer.”
I was 18 in 2005, as well. My name is also
Lauren. And I lived about 20 minutes away from
Lauren Huxley, in a quiet and nondescript suburb
just like hers. Lauren was in her first year of TAFE,
I was in my first year of uni. I too spent a lot of
time at home while my parents were at work.
Whenever a horrible crime is committed –
especially in Australia, where, thankfully, we do
not experience the same level of horrible crimes
as, say, the US – there’s a tendency to put ourselves
in the victim’s position and breathe a silent, “That
could have been me.” When Lauren Huxley was
all but murdered in her own home, that feeling
was never more palpable for me. It could have been
me. My friends felt the same way, as Lauren’s slow
recovery continued to dominate headlines months
after the attack. It could have been any of us.
Ten years on, Lauren has not only survived- she’s moving forward in a way that is difficult
to comprehend when all you know about her are
the headlines. When Lauren’s case was in the news,
she was described as “sweet”, “gentle” and even
“shy”. All that is still true. But sweet and tough
are not mutually exclusive, and certainly not in
Lauren’s case. After having to re-learn literally
every skill – eating, walking, talking, writing –
and admitting that “some of the beauty” has been
taken from her world, Lauren now has a new job,
a boyfriend and a new role as aunty to her niece,
Scarlett. In short, she is still one of us – just much,
much stronger. I sat down with Lauren 10 years
after the brutal assault that almost took her life
to talk about, well, life.Cosmo: It’s been a decade since you were attacked.
How does that feel?
Lauren: It’s gone really, really fast. I’ve had to do
a lot in those 10 years. I had ongoing operations
for five years after it. My last one was actually in
December, 2010.Five years is such a long time to be in recovery for.
Do you feel a special connection to those doctors
and nurses who helped you pull through?
Not so much, no. I mean, I am so thankful for
everything the doctors were able to do for me.
But I don’t really want to dwell on that, I need
to move on and focus on the rest of my life. The
police officer who found me, Danny Eid, still
sends me a message every Christmas, and that’s
nice. But that’s about it.When did you fi rst start to feel like you were getting
your life back?
Probably when Simone [my sister] and I went
overseas. I was 21, it was three years afterwards.
My family were on that old show, Renovation
Rescue, where they come and fix up your house.
They came to renovate the house and at the end
announced they would pay for our flights. It was
pretty cool.Were your parents worried about you going away?
They understood I needed to go. My friends were
travelling – I needed to have the chance, too. >cosmo exclusive
DOCTORS
SAID I
WOULDN’T
LIVE AND I
HAVE. THEN
THEY SAID I
WOULDN’T
WALK OR
TALK OR FEED
MYSELF.
THEY SAID
I WOULDN’T
BE ABLE TO
DRIVE AGAIN
Hefty jail term eases Huxley’s pain
18-year-old
Lauren before
the attack.STYLING BY NICOLE ADOLPHE. PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAUL SUESSE /BAUER. HAIR AND MAKEUP BY YOLANDA LUKOWSKI/DLM.
LAUREN WEARS
PLAYSUIT BY KEEPSAKE. NEWSPIX; SMH
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COSMOPOLITAN November 2015 57