Carnage at the carvery
Instead of a pub roast, we ended up in Intensive Care
A black car speeded towards us ...on the wrong side
Pulling up in front of my family home, I honked the horn.
‘Just grabbing my key,’ yelled my mum Marie, 45, from the front door.
‘We’ll be here all day, then,’ I chuckled to my partner Ady, 44, behind the wheel.
It was a Sunday afternoon on 25 March 2018.
We were heading for a Sunday roast in our favourite country pub, The Bulls Head. A family tradition.
‘You nervous about tomorrow?’ my younger sister, Courtney, then 17, said, climbing into the back seat with Mum.
‘I’m excited,’ I smiled.
I was starting a new job at a garden centre the next day.
Now, I couldn’t wait for my carvery.
‘I’m hungry,’ I grinned. ‘Me, too,’ Ady said.
It was only 15 minutes away, and we chatted as Ady drove through country roads.
When we were two minutes away, we went round a bend in the road.
I could see the pub up ahead.
Only, as I squinted in the sun, I saw a black car speeding towards us. On the wrong side of
the road. Hurtling along at full speed. ‘Ady!’ I cried, reaching for his arm. Mum and Courtney’s piercing screams rang from the back seat.
Then everything went black.
Next, I heard the steady beep of machines.
An intense pain shot down my left side.
Opening my eyes, I saw my stepdad Paul, 54, and my dad John, 46, beside me.
My older brother Nicky, 30, was holding my hand. ‘You’ve been in a crash,’ he said gently.
I was in University Hospital Coventry.
I’d been drifting in and out of consciousness – for two weeks.
A man driving at speed had smashed into us, head-on.
Ady...Mum...Courtney...
I thought, dazed.
Thankfully, we were all alive – just.
We all had terrible injuries. The bone in my left arm, from elbow to wrist, had shattered on impact. I’d had a piece of metal inserted to replace the bone.
It was the same for my ankle.
The bone had shattered and it was now held together with metal plates.
Mum had to be resuscitated at the scene. She was in the next ward, with fractured ribs, two broken legs and a broken shoulder.
Courtney was at the Major Trauma Unit at Royal Stoke University Hospital, with a broken leg and elbow.
Meanwhile, Ady was at the Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham, with a broken leg, smashed heel, dislocated jaw, broken ribs, ruptured spleen, bruised lung and fractured ankle.
Dosed up on morphine, I struggled to take it in.
Paul, Dad and Nicky did their best to spend time with us all, but we were scattered across the Midlands.
Bodies broken, unable to be there for each other.
A few days later, Courtney visited me.
‘How are you?’ she asked, leaning over to hug me. ‘Not good,’ I wept. Traumatised, we struggled to comfort each other.
Three weeks after the crash, six nurses helped me into a wheelchair.
The moment my feet hit the floor I passed out from pain.
The next day, I was wheeled
over to see Mum.
As soon as I spotted her, propped up in bed, I burst into tears.
‘It’s good to see you,’ she wept. We’d both have to learn to walk again.
It was tough. I needed Ady. ‘I miss you,’ I sobbed on the phone to him.
And our injuries weren’t just physical.
Me, Mum and Courtney were diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder.
The slightest noise would make us jump, shake.
My doctor said I’d always need a stick to walk, and a wheelchair sometimes, too. Mum was the same. Finally, a month after the accident, me and Mum were transferred to Royal Derby Hospital. And at the same, Ady was moved there, too.
Overwhelmed with emotion, we kissed and hugged.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he wept.
‘It’s not your fault.’ I said. There’s nothing Ady could have done.
The police had been to see him in hospital, taken a statement.
The driver of the other car, Reece Burton, had been arrested, charged.
‘I hope he gets what he deserves,’ I seethed.
He’d caused my family to go through so much suffering.
Ady had to take long-term sick leave from his van-driving job.
I never started my new job. We had to leave our flat because we couldn’t cover the rent.
Our lives were in tatters. I was discharged in the June, after three months in hospital.
With no home to go to, I stayed at a friend’s.
I struggled to do the simplest tasks. My family and Ady helped as much as they could. But I felt helpless.
In April this year, Reece Burton, 23, of Whitwick, appeared at Leicester Crown Court.
He pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicle taking, refusing to give a blood specimen to police, and four counts of causing serious injury by dangerous driving.
The court heard he’d stolen his mate’s keys, taken his car.
Under the influence and uninsured, he’d knocked into two other vehicles on a bend.
Instead of stopping, Burton sped off, swerving into oncoming traffic minutes later. Us. Burton, who the court heard has Asperger’s, autism and ADHD, suffered a broken leg.
But at hospital, he refused to let police test his blood for alcohol or drugs. He’d initially tried to blame his mate for the crash, before confessing.
Burton was sentenced to 40 months in jail. Just 10 months for each of us.
He was also disqualified from driving for three years following his release.
But it’s not enough.
His lawyer asked the judge to spare him jail because of his age.
It’s a joke. He’s older than Courtney. She’s just 18 and her life will never be the same again.
She struggles to walk long distances – and, like me, won’t get in a car.
Ady and I have just moved into a bungalow, but I’m in constant pain, need a wheelchair for walks longer than five minutes.
Mum is constantly wheelchair-bound.
Despite the carnage he caused, Burton will soon walk free.
Yet none of us will walk unaided again.
His sentence is a joke – he’ll soon walk free. Unlike us