Brave little Thalia is bouncing back from the dog attack that changed her life | PHOTOS

A prosthetic arm with a hand that can pick things up, just like her left hand, would do just nicely.  

The strength of character and resilience of this vivacious eight-year-old from Valentine is nothing short of inspiring.  

On August 29 last year Thalia, 8, was playing with friends outdoors – nothing out of the ordinary for the popular Valentine Public School student. She sat down with her back to a fence when without warning an Alaskan malamute ­behind the fence grabbed her right arm through a 20-centimetre gap between the bottom of the fence and the ground. The animal pulled Thalia’s arm under the fence and refused to let go, severing her arm above the wrist.

A year has passed.

Thalia endured nine surgeries in three months.

At one stage surgeons talked about amputating her right arm, to make it easier for a prosthetic arm to be fitted. Instead, she had bone removed from her hip and put into her arm, fused  with screws.  The screws have added to the  considerable nerve pain she endures as a result of her injury, and she can  feel them in her arm, under her skin.  Phantom pain has also proved a problem.

It didn’t stop Thalia from competing in a swimming carnival just six months after the attack, though. Or from excelling at athletics.

Last week Thalia and her mother Sally travelled to Westmead Hospital to receive some good news. The screws will be able to come out, surgeons told them, because the bone looks strong.

“As long as this surgery goes well, that should be the end of our surgeries,”  Sally Standley tells Weekender. “Thals said to me ‘High five mum, we’re an awesome team’ as we walked out of clinic. 

“After this next lot of surgery we will go ahead with a myoelectric prosthesis and put our application forward to the NDIS for yearly funding. This prosthesis costs $19,500 and will most likely have to be changed every year as she grows.” 

Replacing the parts will cost between $2500 and $6000 per year.

Thalia’s mother, and her father Randall, have been by their daughter’s side every step of the way. So have siblings Jessica, 13, Nathan, 12 and Jacob, 16. Make no mistake, theirs is a tight-knit family unit.

“With everything that Thals has had to go through she has been very courageous, strong and brave. She has worried about and cried for everyone else but herself,” Sally Standley says. 

“During the Easter school holidays this year was the first time in nine months I had seen Thalia shed a tear for herself. I found her sitting down by herself and I said ‘What’s wrong darling?’ and she said ‘I just feel so sad Mummy, this is so hard’.

“Before that, she had cried for everyone else. She’s cried for the dog, she’s cried for the owners, she’s cried for the ambulance drivers, she’s cried for us, she’s cried for the nurses – she’s cried for everyone who had to go through what they went through to get her better.”

Thalia was lucid during the attack. On the way to the hospital she even corrected the spelling of her name.

The trauma has lingered.

Sister Jessica is, Sally Standley says, Thalia’s new hero.

“She sat with her little sister on the driveway to comfort her as the neighbours tried to retrieve her hand out of the dog’s mouth. And still to this day she says ‘Mum, I won’t tell you exactly how it was’.

“It has all been very traumatic for Jess, in particular, but she still wants to protect my husband and I. She says the attack was like a pebble that’s been chucked into water – it’s just had this ripple effect, you know?

“I know I find it difficult to drop the kids off at friends’ places – many of them live close to where it happened. Some weeks I can do it, and other weeks I just say to the kids ‘No, sorry, they’ll have to come to us or you’ll have to miss out’.

“And Jacob has experienced phantom pain sensations in his dominant hand, so that has been another interesting thing to deal with.

“There’s so much in this past 12 months that as a family we’ve all had to try to deal with, but we’re getting there.”

Incredibly, the family were targeted by internet “trolls” in the aftermath of the attack. The viciousness of the comments stunned – and cut deep.

“We all know how horrible some of the trolls out there can get, it’s just disgusting,” Sally Standley says.

“You can’t imagine the kind of crap Jessica has had to deal with in high school from people who just don’t think before they speak. And kids can be cruel at the best of times, let alone the worst of times.

“I’m a big believer in karma, though. I believe that what you put out you get back, so we’ve always tried to focus on the positive. That’s been beneficial to our family, to not focus on negative people or the negative thoughts that can so easily enter your brain. Randall and I are just trying to maintain that positiveness for the kids.” 

Once again, though, it’s a case of the family following brave little Thalia’s lead. 

“I enrolled Thalia in drama classes again because she had started to show signs of being scared of the outside world, and of people looking at her,” Sally Standley says.  

“Thalia has always said that kids are so much better than adults. Kids will say ‘What happened? Where’s your arm?’ She will say ‘Oh, I got attacked by a dog’. And straight away you see the kids process the information and then just get on with it and play.

“Another thing that Thalia has learned to do is that if people look at her, she smiles. Because when a kid smiles it stops all that questioning and staring – when she smiles at them, they smile back, and then they move on.

“It’s something she has certainly taught me, how powerful that little smile can be. She’s definitely been guiding us, that’s for sure.”

Sport-loving Thalia, now in year 3 and about to celebrate her ninth birthday, demonstrates a remarkable emotional maturity for one so young.

“At the start people would stare and I didn't like being so different. But when I smile I let them know it’s OK,” she tells Weekender. 

“Once I was getting really frustrated that I couldn't keep up with my friends doing cartwheels and handstands so when I spoke to Mum after school she said to me, ‘Well, you have one really strong, good arm and hand. Maybe you need to just try and perfect it with that?’ 

“So I did. I can now also do front flips and round-offs. 

“I'm also about to go to my first athletics carnival for amputees where I am going to do shot put and discus and running.” 

The Standleys have been humbled by the generosity and support offered by the Valentine community and further afield. It was not asked for, but it has been gratefully received. A fund-raising night was held in February and on August 28 Valentine Football Club is holding a charity gala day to raise funds for a prosthetic arm for Thalia.

Special mention was made of Thalia’s teacher Melanie Vale, who has “gone above and beyond to help Thalia with her transition and also helped the school community to adjust”.

“I’m finding out whether or not funding is going to be available for Thalia because, while the community has been so phenomenal to us, and it’s mindblowing how beautiful and supportive everyone has been, I don’t want people to think we’re out there trying to get a dollar,” Sally Standley explains. 

“I don’t want anyone to think that that’s the sort of people we are – all these beautiful things that people are doing, like the soccer gala day, they’re doing this off their own backs. It’s still very overwhelming to know that people haven’t forgotten about what happened to Thals.” 

In the meantime, though, Thalia has a birthday to prepare for. 

She has, Weekender is told, asked for two things. Firstly, for her ears to be pierced, and secondly, to have a prosthetic arm fitted “so she will be able to pick up things and feel like she has a hand that works”. 

“I always say that what happened has been a horrendous accident. Thalia didn’t know the dogs were there and she placed herself in a spot where she thought she was safe, and that dog just pulled her under and there was just nothing she could do about it. The more she tried to fight, the more it held on,” Sally Standley says.

“The whole family has endured a heartbreaking journey of grief  and sadness and trying to find our new normal, however we are all so close and have an unbelievable family bond where we have all helped each other through our individual journeys. 

“The road is still long but we are starting to see the light shine through.”