FITNESS HELPED MUM TO SURVIVE CRASH INJURIES
Family told to prepare for worse after accident
AMUM was millimetres from losing her leg after it was impaled by a handlebar when a car struck her while she cycled home. Mandy Draper, 52, had just finished an extra shift at an oil refinery when the accident happened.
The mum-of-two from Pembroke was left with a catalogue of horrific injuries and was placed in a coma.
Medics discovered a handlebar had pierced Mandy’s left thigh, next to a major artery.
Mandy had taken the work to earn some extra money so she could fund a visit to her son in Australia after nine years apart.
She said: “Luckily for me, it all happened so quickly and all I remember is the car coming towards me.
“They thought I was going to lose my leg. The doctor said it was only because of my extreme fitness that I survived. They had never seen anyone survive what I went through. It was a miracle.
“He also said he had never seen anyone in his whole career with so many complications come through the other side.”
Mandy was taken to Morriston Hospital in Swansea where doctors found she had also suffered serious head injuries, a punctured lung, broken ribs, a broken wrist and broken her back in two places.
But after spinal fusion surgery Mandy’s condition took a drastic turn and she developed clots in her heart and lungs, forcing doctors to put her in a medically induced coma and on a life support machine.
She said: “They basically told my family I had too many complications and to prepare for the worst.”
But Mandy, who is originally from Birmingham, stunned doctors and pulled through. And just under a year later she has taken part in a marathon, despite doctors saying she would never run again.
Last Sunday she completed the Great Birmingham Run in four hours and 17 minutes in aid of Wales Air Ambulance, which took her to hospital.
She said: “I had to learn to walk again and being as fit as I was that was hard to deal with.
“Going up the stairs I felt like I had been smoking 60 cigarettes a day, I couldn’t breathe.
“It’s running that has got me back to where I am now.
“I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and anxiety but running has helped me through everything.
“Since that accident I have been grateful for every new day and will never take life for granted again.”
“I have to say a special thank you to the Wales Air Ambulance for their swift response and the surgeons.”
To donate visit: www.justgiving. com/fundraising/mandy-draper