Leah and Joe: the brave young couple that disaster couldn’t tear apart
The heartbreaking battle for the Alton Towers victims to rebuild their lives and budding romance ... in Part Two of our compelling interview
IT WAS a rather unusual date for a pair of love-struck teenagers. Sitting on hospital beds under the watchful eyes of their parents, Leah Washington and Joe Pugh were enjoying a rare treat – a Chinese takeaway – and boxes of hot food littered the floor of the ward.
The sweet-and-sour chicken, chickenfried rice and chips tasted delicious after weeks of bland hospital food. But even more precious was the fact that this was a snatched moment of normality for the couple as they made their slow and painful recovery from devastating, life-changing injuries sustained in the Alton Towers rollercoaster crash.
For this young couple everything changed during a trip to the Staffordshire theme park in June when the Smiler ride they were on crashed into a stationary carriage on the same track.
Leah, then 17, nearly died twice in the wreckage and ended up having her left leg amputated above the knee; Joe, then 18, had both knees smashed so badly he has had to learn to walk again.
Last week, Leah told The Mail on Sunday how the tragedy had shattered their lives. But while many relationships would not have survived such a terrible event, the teenagers have described in their first emotional interview together how it has brought them closer.
Speaking from his family home in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, with Leah by his side, Joe explains how the pair now have an indelible bond.
Squeezing Leah’s hand, he says: ‘No one else really understands what we’ve been through. We talk to each other about what happened – it helps. It’s brought us closer together, there’s no doubt about that. We both support each other because it’s hard for both of us not being independent any more.
‘Even simple things like just going out for a meal together to a pub, we need the help of our parents or friends. Even though it’s not a big thing to most people, it is when you’re like us.’
Joe’s words show a maturity beyond his 19 years. But then, both of them had to grow up fast over the past few months. Their relationship now is punctuated by exhausting physiotherapy sessions which often keep them apart, and a regimen of painkillers to numb the agony of their injuries. And, unlike any other teenage romance, their complex physical needs mean that, for the moment, they are always accompanied by their supportive families. Even today while they are being interviewed, their parents hover in the background in case they are needed for the smallest task.
It means the couple are careful not to be overly affectionate. But it is clear they are smitten with each other.
Occasionally, they find some time to be alone, so they can enjoy a little more intimacy. But those moments are precious.
There have been small but significant victories in recent weeks. Leah went to her first social event since the accident – a party at a friend’s house – after weeks of avoiding such gatherings because she felt uncomfortable going in a wheelchair.
‘I gave it a go,’ she says. ‘I was sitting there with my friends, who’ve been really supportive and I can talk to about anything, and I realised other people were just staring. A lot of people didn’t know what to say when they saw me, scared of saying the wrong thing.
‘I just think, “Why don’t you say something?” It’s really hard, actually. But already I’m learning how to deal with other people’s embarrassment about my leg. I won’t joke about it, but I do just let it all wash over me – it doesn’t upset me like it used to.
‘I want people to understand that I’ve not changed, that I’m still the same.’
Joe, too, has gradually begun to see his friends again, but the process has taught him just how restricted his life has become. ‘Every Saturday my friends used to go out and I’d get them drinks from the bar, and now I just can’t do that. One place we went to for a meal, I couldn’t get to the disabled toilet because it was up a flight of stairs.’
Jokingly, he adds: ‘I didn’t drink much that night.’
But the reality is that the situation in the pub came as a surprise. ‘It did shock me, seeing how terrible the facilities are for disabled people. I’m only 19 so it wasn’t really anything I’d ever thought about. But now it’s so obvious and it makes life so hard that people just don’t seem to think.’
The couple had been together just six weeks when tragedy struck during what should have been a carefree date to the fun park. Joe first noticed attractive blonde Leah last year after meeting her at his best friend’s 18th birthday party.
The pair live just three miles apart in Barnsley but they attended different schools. However, Barnsley is not a large town, and Leah happened to be at the party because her parents were friends with the host’s family. Joe admits that he ‘thought she was pretty’ but shyness took over that
No one else understands what we have been through
night and their conversation amounted to little more than a brief ‘hello’.
It took a year before Joe worked up the courage to send her a message on Facebook. Emboldened by her reply, Joe says they began to text and chat on the phone. ‘Over the next few months we talked every day and realised that we got on and so I asked her if she wanted to go out on a date,’ he recalls.
For Leah, the attraction was Joe’s sense of humour. ‘Joe made me laugh,’ she says. ‘He’s a fun guy to be around and that’s what drew me to him.’
Like any teenagers, they excitedly began to make plans for the rest of the summer, including a trip to The Shard in London to celebrate Leah’s 18th birthday in July. They are carefree days that they both now look back on wistfully.
The aftermath of the tragedy, while they recuperated at the Royal Stoke University Hospital, was particularly hard for Leah, who was forced to come to terms with her permanent disability. But Joe was there to help her through it from their very first conversation following the accident.
‘She asked me if things would still be the same between us as she had lost her leg,’ he says. ‘I reassured her that they would be, and that for me nothing had changed.’
Clearly one of her first priorities as she came round from her coma was her relationship with Joe. ‘I guess I was worried things would be different,’ she shrugs, self-consciously. ‘Everything had changed in my life and I wondered how I would cope. Changing the dressings at the end of my limb, where it had been amputated, was gruelling. But I’d confide in Joe – we’d talk about how everything was going to be different. He’d be so supportive and would spur me on – he’d say, “It’s all OK.”’
It is testimony to them both that they made it through the next few difficult weeks together.
LEAH opted to be placed on a paediatric ward, while Joe was on an adult ward, but still they made the effort to see each other almost every day. However, they were rarely alone – Joe, in a wheelchair, needed his parents to bring him down to see Leah, which could make their time together stilted and frustrating. It was hard to ask their parents to leave. Often it was difficult to find the time, as both needed complex physiotherapy and other treatments.
But the pair stayed in close contact by phone and text and, when they could, sat together in their wheelchairs and talked, spurring each other on through darker days.
It is hard to express how they felt then. But they also admit they still haven’t accepted the reality of the life they now face. Joe says: ‘There were days when everything felt too much to cope with.
‘It felt like our lives were over while we were still young.
‘On those days, Leah would turn to me and say, “It’s going to be all right. There’s so much to look forward to. I’m here.” And I’d think, “She’s right.”’
It became harder when, after 22 days, Joe was discharged.
The 160-mile round-trip from Barnsley, coupled with Joe’s exhaustive physiotherapy regime, meant that he was only able to make the journey to see Leah once. But his support for her never wavered.
Joe says: ‘We were both having to learn new things, we both had the same frustrations, the rounds of hospital appointments and physio. It can get you down but Leah helped pull me out of it.
‘I’m so proud of her and what she’s achieved – she’s amazing.
‘She was so poorly and she’s just been determined to get on with her life with a smile on her face. Her positivity helps me.’
Joe and Leah have been overwhelmed by the generosity of strangers, touched by their plight.
One company, Crystal & Crutches, offered to make each of them a bespoke pair. Joe opted for a silver diamante effect, while Leah chose sparkly blue crystals.
Joe says: ‘She sticks all the sequins on herself. It’s brilliant, we both really love them.’
Now that they are both out of hospital, they are learning how to deal with their disabilities in the real world.
The journey between their homes takes only about ten minutes by car. ‘We manage to see each other once a week and text each other every day. It’s not the important things we text about, just the little things that keep us close,’ Joe says.
Both are inseparable from their iPhones – but what was typical teenage behaviour is now a lifeline that connects them to each other.
Both families celebrated Leah’s birthday together with a meal in a local pub – perhaps not the intimate affair the couple had planned.
Clearly, living their relationship in full view of both sets of families is not an ideal scenario for the youngsters. They want to learn how to drive adapted cars – Joe’s car used to be his passion – and are both keen to try horse riding.
HOWEVER, Joe still also suffers psychologically from the Alton Towers accident. ‘It’s like a control thing,’ he explains. ‘When I’m a passenger in a car I find that, when we come up to a junction I am mentally braking all the time, because of what’s happened.
‘I feel like it’s just going to happen again.’
Both of them also want to continue studying for their chosen careers. For now, Leah has had to postpone her teacher-training place at the University of Leeds, but for Joe there might be a chance he will return for the second year of his university course in Huddersfield this autumn, where he studies fashion design.
Last week, Leah worked up enough confidence to go to the cocktail bar at the Shangri-La Hotel within The Shard last Sunday. ‘It was amazing to be there and I did find it quite emotional finally looking out at the view and knowing that I’d made it,’ she admits. ‘No one stared and everyone was really lovely. I wasn’t worried any more about being in a wheelchair.
‘It was different to the experience I’d expected as I’d planned to go on my 18th birthday, with two legs. But I was so grateful to be there, and to be alive. That felt like a big step for me.’
Another big step, both in their relationship and in their rehabilitation, will be going on cruise together later this month – although frustratingly, it will again be with their families by their side. The P&O liner will take them to Guernsey, Lisbon and Oporto.
But even this will be a poignant reminder to Leah of how her life has changed – Guernsey is one of just a handful of European ports which is not wheelchair-accessible, so she will have to remain on board while other tourists go off to explore.
The couple are also reluctantly aware they may have to deal with a certain amount of attention from other passengers after finding that they are now recognised in the street. They are, however, determined to channel their new-found recognition into charitable causes.
They are planning an event to raise money for the medical staff from Royal Stoke University Hospital and the air ambulance medics who rescued and treated them after the accident. ‘Joe and I are doing this together and it is giving us something to focus on and take our minds off what happened,’ explains Leah.
‘It’s a different path from the one we expected. But at least we know how we feel about each other.’