Alton Towers victim: Having leg amputated was a relief
A STUDENT who lost a leg in the Alton Towers rollercoaster crash said she is determined to walk in time for her graduation.
Vicky Balch, 20, suffered devastating injuries to her right leg when two carriages collided on the Smiler ride in June – but said amputation was a ‘relief’.
Fellow front-seat passenger Leah Washington, 17, had most of her left leg removed and their boyfriends, Daniel Thorpe, 27 and Joe Pugh, 19, were also badly hurt.
Miss Balch endured six agonising operations to save her leg, but doctors were forced to amputate after an infection took hold.
Yesterday, the sports performance student spoke of her determination to learn to walk again for her graduation from the University of Derby in November.
In an emotional interview, the keen dancer said her leg had become a painful burden and that it was ‘looking like a piece of meat from the butchers’.
‘After the third operation it was looking good. I thought I might be able to walk again,’ she told the BBC. ‘But the bad news came before my seventh operation … The leg was so painful that I couldn’t do anything with it.’
Miss Balch, of Leyland, Lancashire, had it amputated above the knee but was then able to make progress with her recovery at the Specialist Mobility Rehabilitation Centre in Preston.
She added: ‘I looked down, I looked at my leg, it was a relief. It was a relief not to have it there.’
Having begun in a wheelchair, Miss Balch is now using crutches and was recently given a prosthetic leg. ‘I’m graduating in November, so I want to be able to walk with a crutch,’ the student said. ‘I just want a leg so at graduation I can say, “Look how far I’ve come”.’
She told host Victoria Derbyshire of her ‘really bad feeling’ when she saw a stationary carriage ahead, seconds before the impact. ‘I remember it going into my knees and it hurt,’ she said.
‘ The pain was indescribable … as I’m talking about it I can still feel how it did as it crashed into my legs.’
Miss Balch lost consciousness as the carriage slammed back and forth into the stationary one. ‘I couldn’t tell you how many times it impacted on it because I fainted,’ she said, adding that she saw ‘blood pouring out’ of her knee.
‘I never thought I would be able to walk again … I didn’t think I would make it,’ she said. Miss Balch received weekly visits from Alton Towers staff after the crash and said they were ‘doing everything they can for the families’.
Merlin Entertainment, which owns the park, has said all 16 people involved in the crash will receive compensation. It said the incident was the first accident in the company’s history.
Mr Pugh’s kneecap was shattered in the crash, while Mr Thorpe was treated for a collapsed lung and a broken leg.