I thought I was invincible - but the crash changed it all

from alright.

In addition to the severe head injury, Ross had a badly bruised lung which had to be drained, a broken collar bone and fractured leg. Miraculously, his passengers escaped with whiplash.

“He was all wired up. I remember turning to a nurse and saying: ‘That is my baby lying there, and look at the size of him.’ He was 24 at the time. They put him into a medicallyinduced coma. He was in the advanced critical care unit. They tried to bring him out of the coma seven days later, but he was not coming out of it.

“That was when they discovered that the cells in the brain were not responding,” said Elaine, who was told her son was too ill to be moved to the specialist head injuries unit at the Southern General Hospital.

“After he woke up a bit, we thought he would be frightened because we were all talking around him and he couldn’t answer. We explained to him that he had been in an accident and the reason he couldn’t speak was because of the tracheostomy. But that wasn’t true. He had to be fed by a tube.”

Ross was moved to Murdostoun Castle Brain Injury and Rehabilitation and Neurological Care Centre in Bonkle where he remained for seven months.

“He could not walk, talk or do anything. He went in there on a stretcher. We had to take pictures in of family members and even the dog to see if he recognised them.

“There was a glimmer of recognition and that was a huge relief,” said Elaine, of Cambusnethan.

Her son, who had been a stock car racing driver since the age of 12, had gone from a cheerful young man who loved his job as a class 2 HGV driver with WH Malcolm, to a broken spirit.

Thanks to the hard work of physiotherapists and speech therapists at Murdostoun and his own sheer determination, Ross regained strength and speech and was discharged to his parents’ home after seven months.

With a little help from his mum with domestic chores, Ross now lives independently in his own flat in Overtown.

Ross can recall the moment his car struck the billboard that night, but remembers little else.

“I was 24 – a young and stupid boy,” says Ross, whose dad had told him not to take the car, which was designed for track racing, out the evening of the crash.

“I wish now that I’d listened. I thought it was good to speed, I thought it was cool. I’d heard the police saying: ‘Don’t speed,’ but I thought ‘I’ll decide,’ and I went for it. They told my parents at the hospital that I had eight hours to live. I couldn’t speak, eat or drink. I couldn’t walk. I said: ‘What do you mean, I can’t walk?’ I tired to get out of bed and fell. I was crying.”

Not only did Ross learn to walk and talk again, he took driving lessons. And, after re-sitting his driving test four times, he has been back behind the wheel for three years.

He now drives a Ford Focus – a vehicle he describes as “a standard car.”

“I do not want to go fast now,” says Ross, who is still in a relationship with his girlfriend. “If it says 30, I stay at 30.”

Ross and mum Elaine have been going to Headway North Lanarkshire meetings at Wishaw Volunteer Centre for eight years.

For Ross, Headway North Lanarkshire gives him the opportunity to help other people who have a brain injury who may be struggling.

“We have met a lot of lovely friends here. The support has been brilliant and has made such a difference,” says Elaine, 62, who admits Ross began driving again against her will.

“Ross’s brain injury has not changed his personality. Yes, he does get down and gets very tired and sometimes emotional. But he is still a cheery guy, and always full of cheek.”

I was 24 - a young and stupid boy. I thought it was good to speed