It’s been a tough year for Kerri-Anne Kennerley, particularly now that she is husband John’s full-time carer, who is a quadriplegic following a fall in 2016.
The Australian media personality, told 9Honey, she and John almost did not attend their friends’ Christmas dinner because their stairs proved difficult for John and his wheelchair.
“My best girlfriend Elizabeth does Christmas Eve for 30 people and we’re all going,” Kennerley told 9Honey. “We were almost not going because she has four steps which means you need a six metre ramp for John’s chair.”
“Then I thought, we have Woollahra fire station literally behind us so yesterday I went to visit them, and they could not have been more fabulous,” she gushed.
Kennerley, 64, recalled how she explained to a fireman at the station that she needed assistance with carrying John up and down a set of stairs for a Christmas shindig near their house.
“He said, ‘Absolutely, we do these things for the community. Any time 24/7 you need help with John we’re always here.”
“They’ve always been good blokes,” she added.
For Christmas lunch, Kennerley will be hosting again this year, after the family started a new tradition of Christmas at their house following John’s accident, 9Honey reported.
“The kids will jump in the pool and I’ll do roast pork, prawns and other seafood,” she said.
In 2016, John suffered a horrific freak accident during a golfing tournament in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, which left him paralysed.
In a rare interview with Sunday Night earlier in the year, John told the program, “Kerri-Anne is very loving and she has been the strength of my whole recovery.”
“Without her I don’t think I would have attempted it but, as I say, she was there when I woke up and she has been with me every day,” John explained.