More than a decade since her quad bike accident, Anita Kendrick's career is flourishing. PHOTO Sigrid Christiansen
ELEVEN years have passed since 2012 when Anita Kendrick told King Country Farmer about the quad bike accident that left her legs paralysed.
Back then, the 19-year-old shepherd had just returned from treatment at the Ōtara Spinal Unit. She did not yet have a modified house or farm vehicle. It was a scary, uncertain time.
Today those adaptations are long past, and her career has flourished on Te Wharua Station a Pāmu farm northwest of Taumarunui, her workplace through those years.
Anita is now stock manager and aspires to be a manager one day.
But the leadership position doesn’t stop her getting out on the 1100-hectare effective farm in her side-by-side.
She has eight dogs – fewer than previously, because her current role requires her to delegate and doesn’t involve as much stockwork.
She mentors junior shepherds, “to get them where they want to be,” helping them learn their jobs and build confidence in their teams of dogs.
Her stock manager role was about thinking outside the square, she said.
As long as the gates swing, which they do, she can get around most places – to around 70 percent of the farm.
She uses binoculars to extend her range of vision in the steeper country.
“I just have to be organised, thinking a day ahead. Saying to staff, leave that gate open for me tomorrow because I’ll go do that loop.”
Only minor changes were necessary with the farm infrastructure. When they are putting in new gates or fences, Anita talks to the fencer or the digger driver about which way a gate might swing.
“It’s just a matter of people communicating and thinking of me, really, when they do something or put something in.
“[It] is just good farming. You should have gates that swing. It’s a waste of time if you don’t.”
Can a child operate all the gates? That’s the litmus test.
Anita’s niece comes nearly every weekend, “because I’ve got puppies,” she quipped. And it’s a shared goal of the staff at Te Whārua that even a child that age should be able to get around the farm.
“It’s about being able to take her around the whole farm with me. She comes on the weekends and putts around with me, and she can open and close every single gate.
Anita’s growth as a farmer and a person has involved times of struggle.
She spent the first two years after the accident in denial, she said – and next entered “a pretty dark hole.”
“I turned to booze pretty hard. I spent four or five years just floating, not in a very happy space.
Things changed in 2019 – she “just had enough” of being overweight, unfit, and in a poor metal space.
She did something about it.
“I lost 30 kilos and got right into the fitness. That cleared my head.” She also made a new group of like-minded positive friends.
A career boost was next – going from casual to full-time on the farm. In June 2022, she got the stock manager job, “something to grab hold of and get stuck into.”
On the station they were between staff. Anita knew the farm well and had enough experience. It was perfect timing.
“Mickey said, ‘let’s talk about making it work’. It’s worked really well.”
A betrayal by a former friend was the catalyst for the turnaround. Anita then saw a counsellor.
“That was the light bulb moment. He opened my eyes to the fact I needed to do a lot of work on myself … there was stuff I hadn’t dealt with. Not just from the accident, from childhood.
“I’m actually thankful that [the former friend] did do what she did, because it was a big turning point.”
Her mother, Robyn Kendrick, has been a strong supporter throughout Anita’s journey, alongside her “semi-retired” father Bob who also works on the farm.
“We’re both proud of her. Who wouldn’t be?”
Anita is grateful for her mum’s ability to be a sounding board.
“Mum’s always been one to push me in the right direction. She’s pretty good, we chuck ideas to and fro – we work out if something’s not right.”
Anita remains grateful for her busy, outdoors childhood. To this day, it has helped her stay present in life, and she had retained her love of getting out there, doing things, like go-karting rather than sitting around the house.
Although the 90s made it easy – “we had dial-up, you were lucky if you could send an email,” she said.
These days, she loves showing her nieces the world outside technology – from exploring the creek to drafting in the yards.
“You’ve got a farm to explore. You’ve got paddocks, you’ve got puppies, you’ve got dogs, you’ve got everything on your back doorstep.”
One important lesson she has learned is about appreciating what is possible – and it has come with a side of frustration.
In her last interview for the then Waitomo News, Anita said “walking is not the only thing in life.”
She still agrees with that quote. “But there’s two sides to that quote now.”
“There’s a lot of people out there walking that don’t use their legs. You just want to rattle them.”
Those feelings sometimes arose on the farm – on occasion, workers stayed on their bike rather than walk 50 or 100 metres up a hill to have a look at what they were mustering. It meant they weren’t the farmers they could be.
Another lesson Anita has identified is around patience.
“My accident doesn’t worry me. Being in the chair doesn’t worry me.”
But the little stuff could still be frustrating, she said – like the time she spilled dog biscuits at the end of a long day. In the end, the dogs ate the biscuits off the ground, and it was fine.
“I’m just, ‘right here, team’ and they all had their dinner. It’s … not stressing the small stuff.
Her experiences have made her a better manager. She said it was important to look after staff members’ mental health too – and in her farming, making sure instructions were clear and easy to understand.
“I don’t see myself as inspirational. I’m living life, and I’m doing what I love doing,” she said.
Anita judges pet day at Āria School, and judges horse events at pony club and shows, together with mum Robyn.
“I just try to get back there and give to the community.”
Her spare time is either spent with “a great group of mates – awesome people” and family. With friends, it’s all about hunting, enjoying the wildlife, or going on adventures.
“We’ve got deer on the farm, so I get out with friends and do … more deer watching than deer shooting.
Te Whārua manager Mickey MacDonald admires how Anita goes “above and beyond” for the farm and the animals.
He said she had natural ability to identify with stock, and an analytical mind.
“She has a passion for farming, and to do it well, really. No shortcuts. She’s conscientious.
“It’s her ability – if she can’t do something one way, she will find another way to do it. She’s got a very good eye for stock.
“She’ll recognise an animal which is not well, and needs a treatment or whatever, or a mob that’s not doing as well as it should be. She can recognise when animals are doing very well and wonders why they’re doing so well, what are we doing right?”
“She’s made farming her profession since then, just owned it.
“To get to be a stock manager: it wasn’t just her ability to farm or run stock, it was also her ability to manage people which shines through. I recognised what she was capable of there. We were looking for another stock manager and I said, ‘why don’t you put your hand up?’
From here on, “she can take it where she wants. And it doesn’t need to be with farming, it could be with people, working with people.”
“She’s a young woman, she’s got it all in front of her.”
Extract from Waitomo News 17 April 2012
Paralysed teen shows courage
By Robbie Kay
IT was 10:30 am on October 23, 2011, Labour Weekend Monday.
Only a couple of paddocks left to muster. Eighteen-year-old Anita Kendrick was giving the neighbours a hand with docking because they didn’t have enough dogs, and she owned a crack team.
The next thing she remembers is sitting on the ground facing downhill with the 700cc quad bike on her back bending her in half.
She was fully conscious and somehow flipped the quad off.
“I realised I couldn’t feel my legs, just pins and needles,” she says. “The pain was terrible, and I thought I’d be dead before anyone found me.”
“It would be some time before they came looking because they’d expected me to muster those big paddocks for quite a while.”
“I lay down and realised I had a big lump on my back which I thought was broken ribs, and I put my hands under the small of my back to try to take the weight off the lump.”
The lump was her broken back – the impact caused a T12/L1 fracture and jerked her spine backwards.
She had hit a rut and gave the powerful quad bike too much throttle – it reared up and flipped over, landing on top of her.
“I had to talk to myself to take my brain off the pain which was ripping me apart,” says Anita.
“I told myself random stories, ranted and raved.
“My dogs all panicked because they had no idea why I didn’t get up.”
Later, her dad found her, together with the farm owner Cliff. She was flown to Waikato Hospital in a rescue chopper.
Her mum, Robyn, then arrived, which was a great comfort to her when she was given the news about her back.
An operation followed in which rods were inserted and screwed into place on both sides of her spine , her spinal cord was severely compressed.
Two weeks later and she was transferred to Aucklands Ōtara Spinal Unit and a hectic schedule of wheelchair fittings, counselling, education classes, gym workouts, pyhsio and a whole lot more.
After six weeks and a weekend leave pass to go home, the country air proved to be just the tonic she needed and in typical Anita fashion she checked herself out of the spinal unit a month early.
