THE NIGHT MY LIFE CHANGED FOREVER
Death-crash survivor tells harrowing story
THE victim of a road crash caused by two drivers says he would be dead if paramedics had reached the scene 15 minutes later.
Joshua Deguara suffered brain damage, multiple shattered bones, major organ failure and a severed main artery in the incident last August.
The 22-year-old is still waiting for a number of operations, including surgery to amputate one of his legs.
Speaking publicly for the first time since the crash, which caused the death of his friend Sophie Taylor, Joshua is having to be rebuilt, both physically and emotionally.
Michael Wheeler, 23, from Harlech Road, Cardiff, pleaded guilty last December to causing the death of his ex-girlfriend Sophie Taylor and serious injury to Joshua Deguara by driving dangerously. His former partner – Melissa Pesticcio, 24, from Marshfield Road, Cardiff – denied the offences, but was convicted by a jury following a two-week trial.
Earlier this month the pair were sentenced to a total of 14 years. Pesticcio was jailed for six and a half years and Wheeler for seven and a half.
“I used to be like any other 21 or 22-year-old and do what I wanted, play football, and I can’t do anything like that now,” said Joshua. “But we’ll get there, whatever we have to do to get my life back to as normal as we can.”
The fatal collision occurred at 12.35am on August 22 last year at a city junction.
Prosecutors said Wheeler and Pesticcio gave a “joint pursuit” which ended in Wheeler’s Vauxhall Corsa colliding with Ms Taylor’s black BMW One Series, causing it to spin into a building.
The collision caused a catastrophic brain injury that killed Sophie – her passenger was lucky to survive.
After the crash he was left with bruising, swelling and bleeding on the brain. He suffered brain damage which has left him prone to mood swings, and a pelvis shattered at the front and back. It had to be reconstructed with three metal pins and a cage to keep it all together.
His femur broke and severed the main artery in his leg and several of of Joshua’s ribs were broken, leaving him with a punctured lung. After the accident his kidneys started to fail because of toxins in his blood. He was left using a catheter to go the loo.
“I’m waiting for an operation in London to reconstruct my urethra,” Joshua said. “Once I have had that done I will have an operation to amputate below my left knee,” he said. “I’ve made the decision to get rid of my left leg.”
Joshua, who had been about to start a job at Tesco, cannot use his foot and has no feeling below his knee.
“I’ll have a prosthetic leg,” he said. “It is the hardest operation for me to have because it’s the scariest. But two or three months down the line I will think it’s the best thing I’ve done.
“I’m hoping I’ll be as I was before, the only difference being I will be putting my leg on in the morning.
“I’m not going to be able to play football, but I will be able to go to my friends, jump in the car and go for a drive and do all the little things that people take for granted.”
For five weeks after waking he could not remember what had happened.
“I was so confused I did not know why I was in hospital,” he said. “I thought I had been beaten up really badly.”
His dad, Kevin Deguara, helped piece things together.
“My dad said, ‘Do you know where you are?’ and I said, ‘No.’
“A few days later I still could not remember, and he said, ‘Do you remember Sophie’s ex-boyfriend Michael?’ and that triggered some memories.”
Kevin, who makes heating elements for a living, told him he had been in a serious car accident. Joshua assumed it was in his own car.
“We mentioned Sophie Taylor and that he was in her car,” said Kevin, 42, from Llanedeyrn, Cardiff. “Straight away he asked how Sophie was.”
His parents told him she was dead on the day of Sophie’s funeral.
“He was getting a lot better and we did not want him finding out through social media,” his mum, Leanne Marshall, said. It was “a massive shock”. “I had been lucky with close friends,” Joshua said. “I had not experienced people passing away, that was the first time.
“There were very nearly two fatalities that night. It’s still shocking the fact that I nearly died. I was 15 minutes from dying.”
Doctors told him if the emergency services had arrived any later he would not have survived.
“I nearly lost my life, everything,” Joshua said. “My family nearly lost me. When I first got home it was the first of December. That Christmas was the best ever just because I was able to say ‘Merry Christmas’ to my family.
“My outlook has changed so much now. I learned not to take anything for granted because anything could be around the corner.
“They are memories I cannot make any more. Sophie was lovely, such a nice girl. I miss her.”
In sentencing, Judge Thomas Crowther QC told Sophie’s killers they were “consumed with a selfrighteous and jealous rage”.
“Words cannot even describe how I feel about them,” Joshua said. They killed my friend and they nearly killed me. The word hate does not even come near to how I feel.
His mum Leanne said: “I don’t think they have come close to understanding what they did.
“She refused to plead guilty, so she does not think she is responsible, and she’s showed no remorse. There was no apology from either of them.”
“I’m glad the verdict was guilty. But it should be a life for a life. If they had used a knife as a weapon they would have got more?”
A fundraising page has been set up to pay for a plot and headstone for Sophie. If you can help visit: https://www.gofundme.com/ k7q6ub