Car crash victim from Bodenham, Hereford, is looking ahead to her brighter future (From Hereford Times)

Car crash victim from Bodenham, Hereford, is looking ahead to her brighter future

8:00am Tuesday 19th January 2010 in News

HAYLEY Mullenger will be celebrating the kind of things you would expect any 24-year-old to enjoy as 2010 gets underway.

She has found love and a new home, celebrated another birthday and achieved a new qualification which will see her embark on the teaching career she has always wanted.

But her prospects now are very different to those she faced around seven months ago, when she had to be cut from the wreckage of her Vauxhall Corsa following a collision on the A49 near Pengethley.

The former Aylestone student was six weeks from completing her degree at the West Mercia Consortium when she suffered a huge head cut, smashed left knee cap, broken ankle and a broken wrist in May.

Since then, however, she has courageously fought her way not only to recovery, but also to the end of her degree course, and is finally ready to put her ‘annus horribilis’ behind her.

“You have down days and things like that, but my family and friends were so supportive. They kept my spirits high and said, you know, it’s just going to take time,” she said.

It took four days for Hayley, who lives with partner Ed Stobo in Bodenham, to remember anything at all.

And it was three months before her injuries had improved enough for physiotherapy.

The Kings Caple Primary School placement she was travelling home from when it happened also went on hold and, at times, she wondered if she would ever be the person she was before.

Eventually, however, things began to heal and by October she returned to the road and to her studies.

Kings Caple school staff welcomed her back in time for her to finish her degree last month and one last operation to remove a wire from her kneecap on December 21 saw Hayley finishing the year almost as she started it.

“I used to go out running and I can’t any more, but I’m not limping like I was and on the whole I can do the majority of things,” she said.

But while she is physically improving every day Hayley and her family say the emotional scars – and the realisation that other county drivers have not been as lucky this year – will stick around for a lot longer.

Her mum, Sue James, said: “Considering the number of accidents and fatalities we have on the roads of Herefordshire in the past year, I am so thankful that Hayley was not one of these, as I know she could well have been.

“I am very proud to say, as Hayley’s mum, that today she has completed her degree and at long last qualified as a teacher.”

Hayley gave personal thanks to the emergency services, her friends, family and Ed for all their support.