Published The Advocate, January 21, 2006


ONE of my tasks as an editor, I like to think, is to make journos feel angry about injustice; to shake them out of their professional indifference and comfy middle class existence. Leisha Petrys and I connected when she was a cadet journalist at the start of her career. A shy girl of good parents, she first appeared in a black cocktail dress as someone who liked the idea of journalism rather than being a journalist, with the hard, confronting knocks. Her turning point came with a story about a property developer who had told lies to prospective homebuyers, including a whopper about the nearby prison being relocated as part of a beautification plan. Leisha had to go back repeatedly to seek comment from the developer. Each time, his level of personal abuse and legal threats escalated. She shook with nerves and felt sick but she stuck at it. Such courage, which requires forethought and consideration of the risks involved, is to be admired above physical bravery. If anything, the lies seemed to energize her. It made her more determined and thanks to Leisha the developer was exposed and Consumer Affairs intervened. She blossomed as a journalist from there - ``rocket fuel’’, as they say, to become one of the young anointed. A quick aside: Petrys is a contraction of a much, much longer Russian family name. Her Russian bloodlines blessed her with certain physical advantages such as high cheekbones, flawless skin and a beguiling bosom. Leisha claims she has used her cleavage only once in her job by wearing a plunging neckline to interview Eddie Maguire, of TV and Collingwood fame, in the hope of catching his eye. For what purpose, she remains coy. Not that it did her any good, she said. There must be something wrong with Eddie. Anyway, Leisha fell in love with Greg, an architect, who had a better eye for necklines. She was talking to Greg on the mobile phone, on her way back from covering the Eyre Peninsula bushfires a year ago, when she and another reporter driving the car were hit head-on by a car. Leisha was critically injured. Trapped in the wreck, slipping in an out of consciousness, she lost so much blood she ought to be dead. Afterwards, she recalled how her colleague, who miraculously was uninjured, kept yelling at her: "Don’t you die on me, Petrys!" What is he going on about? she wondered. She had a shattered leg, deep gashes, and chest and abdominal trauma. Her flawless face was left unscathed. After the first emergency operation to save her life, when she regained consciousness the first items she demanded were a pen and notebook to record what was happening. Leisha Petrys. Journalist. She has since endured many operations and had to learn to walk again. She set herself a goal to walk unaided down the aisle on her wedding day to Greg. I went to the wedding last month and Leisha walked straight and true, as I knew she would.