Leah and Joe have opened up about the Alton Towers' Smiler crash 10 years after the incident happened. Credit: Stewarts Solicitors.
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00:00If it weren't for the air ambulance and the other services on the day, then I know that I wouldn't be here today.
00:13Sorry.
00:20Sorry.
00:21You don't want to talk about it?
00:23No, it's fine.
00:25I'll just go get a tissue.
00:27Sorry.
00:28No, it's fine. I don't mind because it's the real need.
00:33We've definitely, like, come a long way since it all happened.
00:38Yeah.
00:39We've not moved on because I don't think we ever will move on.
00:44It's always going to be part of his life.
00:45Yeah, I don't think the chapter will ever close.
00:47No.
00:48But I think it's just a different part of his life, that's all.
00:53Yeah.
00:54So on that day, me and my boyfriend at the time were on a date.
00:58We went straight to the Smiler ride.
01:00It was the first ride.
01:02We were lining up.
01:03There were lots of technical difficulties, but I've been to theme parks before and I never thought anything of it.
01:10I was just like, oh, yeah, it's normal.
01:11We'll just wait and see, see what happens.
01:13And then we finally got to the front and it broke down again.
01:17So they sent a test cart round and then about 20 minutes later, they set us back off again.
01:24Everything were fine.
01:26And then we came round the corner and they were just, the empty cart that they'd sent round were just stuck and we just crashed straight into it.
01:36We were swinging backwards and forwards for probably about five minutes and then we eventually came to a stop.
01:44I think if I remember rightly, it were compared to a car accident driving into a car at 90 mile an hour or something like that.
01:51So it were pretty severe.
01:52Everyone around that were just stood looking at the ride were just taking pictures, filming.
01:59So that weren't nice.
02:01And then I looked down at my legs and realised that something wasn't right.
02:07Looked at Joe and Joe's little finger were hanging off.
02:12The injuries that I sustained were two shattered kneecaps.
02:16My little finger was basically snapped off my hand, which had to be reattached.
02:21And my middle finger was also severed and incredibly damaged.
02:25I think it took us about four hours to get off the ride.
02:29They had to build scaffolding to get us down and so that the medical team could get up to us.
02:35The air ambulance were flying blood in for me because I was just losing that much blood.
02:41I had to have my left leg above the knee amputated.
02:45I had cruciate ligament damage in my right knee, lots of other injuries.
02:50I spent five days in intensive care.
02:55So these cards are what I received in hospital from people that I know and from strangers that just sent them to the hospital hoping that they'd get to me.
03:06And you can see how many there is.
03:09It's just, there's just a lot.
03:11There's hundreds.
03:12There's absolutely hundreds.
03:15They just feel like thinking of you, get well soon.
03:21They just gave me a little boost.
03:23I were in hospital for eight weeks.
03:26And to be in the same routine every day, waking up, go to physio, I'd come back, I'd get a shower.
03:32It was just so structured and just so routine in hospital.
03:36And it was the bubble of the perfect flat floor.
03:40My friends had come and sleep at the hospital and we'd just sit and chat and order a Chinese.
03:46And it was like being back at home, that little bit of normality and feeling like a 17 year old again.
03:53And then this is when I left hospital.
03:57That was my first interview.
04:02I'd been in the bubble of the hospital and then coming home and my body being completely different to the last time I was there.
04:10We're just lots of navigating life in a normal surrounding, not in a hospital surrounding.
04:16So, yeah, it was quite difficult at the start.
04:20We had to kind of learn not only how to walk again and live again, but kind of how to build a relationship again with each other.
04:28At the time, it really doesn't feel it at all.
04:31Myself and Leah were both in very dark places when the accident happened.
04:35We had a lot going around us, whether that be physio appointments, solicitors, media interviews.
04:42We were thrown into a world that we never expected to be in, pretty much.
04:47We weren't just navigating the changes in our body, but we're also navigating this new relationship, navigating solicitors, navigating media.
04:58But looking back now, me and Jo staying together and sticking together, we were such a good support for each other.
05:06Yeah, as injuries were there and everything else around us were going off, but we still had that relationship and still had that friendship that helped us get through everything that we were both dealing with, that we'd both experienced has definitely made our bond a lot stronger.
05:23Fast forward 10 years. I'm in a really good position. We're both really happy. We're now married. We're almost a year into our marriage. We've got a beautiful home together. Yeah, we couldn't be happier.
05:34So not only did I have my friends and family as support and help, but I also had Stuart's Law, who I had a very good relationship with.
05:45Leah was young when I first met her. She was only 17. And for her to go through that process and be injured in the way that she was is quite terrifying for her.
05:54When someone so young as Leah is injured, their family is so important to them. So it's important to include the family as well as part of your discussions.
06:05When you first meet them, the family will most certainly always be there. And it's lovely, actually, because you get to know them so well.
06:12If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have a clue where to start. And it was my first experience dealing with a claim.
06:22And it just made things a lot smoother and a lot easier for me and my family, to be honest.
06:28Myself and Leah were lucky enough to have Stuart's pretty much from day one. They helped with every aspect of the claim.
06:36They were there for support with family, even friends. If friends needed to talk to anybody, they were there for that as well.
06:41We take off from them as much of the stress of everything around them that's going on to allow them to concentrate upon their rehabilitation and their therapies,
06:51which is so important and crucial to them at that stage.
06:53I think just being involved with the clients and their families and just speaking to them and being their support is probably one of my favourite things, actually.
07:03It's just helping them through those difficult times.
07:05They were always there to answer my calls, my emails, my queries, chase things up, do all the things that my brain at 17,
07:16and with everything else going off just couldn't cope with, they were there all the time.
07:21When you get to the final result and the final settlement, you are proud of what you achieve.
07:27You're proud of what your clients, that they've managed to go through that process and that they will get a life that they will enjoy.
07:36And I think that's one of the best things that we can hope for our clients is that they go forward, they move on and they do so with as comfortable a life as possible.
07:45Although it's been a tragic incident in his life, it's fetched a lot of happiness and experiences that we would have never experienced if it weren't for what happened.
07:58So you've always got to find the positive in the negative and just got to grab life because it's so precious and make the most of it.
08:08If we can get back to the next part in the negative part in the negative part in the negative part and we're able to move on.
08:15So let's continue to think about one more time and just take a deep part of it.
08:27You're going to come back up to this part of it.