The sole survivor from a bus crushed in last February's earthquake says the thousands of dollars her injuries cost the taxpayer could have been spent making the building that collapsed onto the bus safe.
Eight people lost their lives in the bus on Colombo Street, and four pedestrians on the footpath died, when the unreinforced brick work of the building toppled in the 6.3 magnitude quake on February 22.
Ann Brower told TV ONE's Close Up she suffered a compound break to her tibia, a broken pelvis, a break in her spine, a broken hand and a ruptured tendon in a finger.
A political scientist who arrived in New Zealand from the United States east coast on a Fulbright Scholarship, Brower spent two months in hospital and another two on crutches and has undergone extensive physiotherapy for her injuries.
She applied under the Official Information Act to find out what her injuries cost the taxpayer and told Close Up the figure is approximately $108,000.
Brower said that $108,000 could have been spent strapping the unreinforced brick work of the building that toppled onto the bus.
The Christchurch City Council had known for decades the building was unsafe, she said.
"It shouldn't have happened. It was absolutely preventable and no-one prevented it."
Brower had earlier this month given evidence at the Canterbury Earthquake's Royal Commission.
"Reading five centimetres of evidence made it searingly obvious, and much more obvious than I thought it would be actually, because every single inspector's report said the building was dangerous." she told Close Up.
"And you [the taxpayer] paid to save my leg, or we all paid to save my leg. It's a generous gift.
"I'm grateful to the New Zealand health system."
Asked what motivated her to want to know how much was spent on her leg, she said: "I'm a numbers girl. I just wanted to know."
"I could see the bricks falling and I could hear the bricks falling, she said, explaining that the roof of the bus pinned her at her pelvis.
"And the pelvis is the strongest and the biggest bone of the body. If it had landed on my chest or skull I wouldn't be here. That was the biggest difference between me and everyone else."
She said every step still hurts "but you live with it".
Her hand injuries mean she has to learn to play the violin all over again and she is working on that.
"Well I'm back to being as bad as I ever was I would say. I was never very good but now I have an excuse."
Ann Brower's harrowing account is documented in a book called Trapped.
Written by Martin van Beynen, it tells the stories of 23 survivors from last February's earthquake.
A portion of the book's proceeds will go to the spinal unit at
Burwood Hospital.
