IT was the summer of 2003 when Josie Pearson was paralysed in a devastating car crash, but as 2010 draws to a close she seems to be very much enjoying the springtime of her life.

Not content with taking part in the 2008 Paralympics, she is now chasing the 2012 dream as well as an appearance in the coming year’s IPC Athletic World Championships in New Zealand.

It’s a far cry from the moment she was left to grieve, not only for her old life, but also for her boyfriend, Daniel Evans, who died in a collision which rocked the community of Hay-on-Wye.

These days, of course, Josie is more widely known as a successful Paralympian and the first-ever woman to represent Great Britain at wheelchair rugby, as well as the star of a Channel 4 advertisement supporting the 2012 London event.

But how did a 17-year-old outdoor, equine fanatic make the transition to disability sports superstar so successfully, and what does she believe helped her recuperate so spectacularly?

“I think I was always ambitious and very stubborn,” Josie, now 24, says. “I was always active, I was always fit – you have to get up and give it your all otherwise you don’t get anywhere in life.”

Even so, the former Fairfield High School pupil admits everything “turned upside down in a split second” and briefly concedes, somewhat uncharacteristically, that she often experienced those “why me?” moments.

“You have to sort of recover first, get better and all that rehab – you have to build up,” she explains. “Then you start to think about the future and things like that.

“Horse riding had been my passion so to have to admit to myself that I couldn’t do it was a bit of a blow – it was so frustrating. I thought ‘I don’t want to put myself through this’.”

Josie returned to horseback within a year of the accident but quickly realised it could only ever be recreational – quite a thing for someone who wanted to be an equine dental technician before the crash.

But instead she found rugby and, typically, soon found herself being lined up for the national squad.

“I wasn’t aiming for 2008 at that stage, I thought ‘even if I am aiming for 2012 I have got to start now’,” she says modestly.

“So when I got that first election I thought ‘I can do this, it’s a possibility’.”

It is surely the same attitude that now finds her living independently, training under sponsorship from Hereford’s Point 4 six days a week in her new-found discipline of athletics and starring in a forthcoming TV documentary about the Paralympics called Hidden Heroes.

And on the personal side her “can do” outlook also means the friendships that formed before everything changed are still intact, another longterm love has come and gone and the way Josie lives her life recreationally is pretty much the same as it’s always been.

“People are generally curious about what my disability means but I don’t think it makes a difference,” she says.

“I make sure I make time for my friends. You make time to switch off in the evenings by having friends round for dinner or something.”

The last six years have undoubtedly involved a climb others would struggle to complete with the same physical and mental finesse as Josie has, but as a new year and another challenge beckons, the future looks very bright indeed – almost certainly golden, in fact.

“Getting a gold medal at the 2012 Paralympics and possibly at Rio 2016 would be nice,” she admits.

“Because I do want to prove that I do have quite a bit of injury, but it hasn’t stopped me doing anything I want to do.”