Driver’s years of guilt and agony after road tragedy
and whether he would have been able to save us, even though the police told me there was nothing anyone could have done.
“Losing Bobby was such a life-changing experience, something I will never get over.
“But I’ve learned that whatever curveball life throws at you, there is always a way forward.”
When Carie first met Bobby in January 1982, she hadn’t expected to l ike the home improvements salesman, who she’d been persuaded by a friend to meet for a drink.
From that moment until the day of his death two years later, they never spent a day apart.
The couple lived together, started working together and were planning what they took for granted would be a long future together when tragedy struck. Carie said: “The crash happened on a very wet evening in January.
“There was a bus strike so the traffic was heavier than normal.
“I had dropped Bobby off at our office while I went to get my hair done at my sister’s hairdressers.
“I ’ d been so bus y chatting to my sister, and because of the extra traffic, I was quite late picking Bobby back up.
“He was standing outside the off ice and, as we were running late, he just jumped in the passenger seat and, very unusually, I drove.”
The couple were on the A71 country road, running past the Dalmahoy Hotel on the outskirts of Edinburgh, when Carie says a car came round the corner just in front of them on the wrong side of the road.
Carie said: “We had a massive wall on one side of us and heavy traffic on the other side – so there was nowhere I could go.
“As the other car hurtled towards us, I remember thinking very clearly, ‘ WereWe’re goinggo to die.’
“But I was wrong. We didn’t both die – just Bobby.”
The impactim of the head- on crash caucaused Carie’s Volkswagen Scirocco to lift off the ground and catapultcat into the 15ft tall wall besbeside them.
Carie said: “I remember everytheverything. We were trapped. The onlonly way they could get me out of the car was by pulling me over Bobby.
“He wasw unconscious and had to be cut out of the car. He diddidn’t stand a chance.”
CarieCar suffered injuries includinginclud a shattered cheekbone,cheek smashed teeth and breaks to her collarbone,co wrist and aankle.
TheTh driver of the other car suffered leg injuriesinjur and went on to beb convicted of carelesscare driving.
BobbyB never rega ined consciousnesscon and died three