A Welsh beauty queen who suffered serious injuries following a horror crash on the M4 has described the ordeal.
Darcey Corria, who won the Miss Wales title last year and is due to represent Wales in this year's Miss World, was involved in a crash on the M4 eastbound near Bridgend on January 19.
The 21-year-old beauty queen from Barry was rushed to University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff where she was treated for a number of injuries including broken bones in her neck.
Darcey spent more than two weeks in hospital before being discharged at the beginning of February, reports Wales Online.
Darcey explained that her recovery has been "slow" but "going well" while her outlook on life has changed drastically.
Although Darcey said she knew very little of what happened to her on January 19 when she woke up later in hospital she said that some of her memories of the crash have come back since she's returned to her family home in the Vale of Glamorgan.
The beauty queen said she was travelling back home from Swansea after dropping off a few dresses at a company when she realised that something wasn't right.
She said: "The car started to spin out of control. I assumed that I had gone over ice because of the weather as it was so bad. Even the day before the woman at the dress company had messaged me and said: ‘Don’t come down – the weather is too bad. Leave it.’ I said: ‘I’ll come down tomorrow – I should be okay’.
"I think I skidded on ice and then just hit straight into the central reservation and spun out of control. As I was spinning out of control I can remember thinking: ‘You’ll be fine – nothing will kill you. You may have written your car off but there’s not a scratch on you – you’ll be fine’.
"Then my car stopped. I was unharmed; I wasn’t injured; I was fine. I was just a little bit confused. My car had stopped and I looked out of my driver’s window. I was across the two lanes and I could see the traffic coming towards me pretty fast.
"I made the decision that there wasn’t enough time to get out of my side. I took off my seatbelt and climbed over to the passenger side to try and get out that way because it gave me more time. And then as I was climbing to the passenger side I remember looking back to see how close the cars were and as I looked back somebody hit into me.
"I went flying. I went through the passenger window, which would have been the reason for my jaw breaking, my facial wounds, and my neck wounds. I then hit the floor, which would’ve been the reason I had broken my pelvis and the bone in my lower back.
"I was awake when I was on the floor. A lady got out of her car and helped me and there was a doctor in a few cars behind. So there were people with me that knew not to move me and keep me completely still. I can just remember being really cold and thinking: 'Where’s my mum? Where’s my boyfriend?' I was really confused.
"The people around me were trying to keep me awake. I was losing a lot of blood from my neck and I didn’t know at the time that I had broken my neck. They were keeping me busy by asking me loads of questions to keep me awake and stop me from falling asleep. And then my memory goes a bit blurry from there – I don’t really remember going to the hospital. It’s blurry for the next two days."
Darcey was treated for a number of injuries including a broken pelvis and two breaks to bones in her neck. She would spend around 20 days at the hospital before she was discharged on February 6. Now an outpatient Darcey is still receiving care and treatment at the hospital. She added that the incident has had an impact on both her physical and mental being.
"My recovery has been very slow," she said. "It’s been up and down really – some days my body feels really tired and then other days I wake up and feel I’ve got energy. It’s different every day. My neck is getting better – the pain has been quite good and I’m not in too much pain.
"My recovery is going well considering everything that I went through. I think at the hospital I was under the impression that as soon as I came home I would be fine but it’s not been the case at all – it's just a slow process. The mental impact however has taken the biggest toll on me. It’s been something really hard to wrap my head around."
Despite the challenges she has faced Darcey said that the support she has received throughout her recovery has been remarkable – particularly from her mum and boyfriend.
She said: "The support has been amazing from everyone – from strangers supporting on the GoFundMe page to friends and families who have been cooking for me and obviously Miss World and the CEO of Miss World coming to visit me, which was amazing. It lifted me up and made me feel like everything was going to be fine.
"My mum and my boyfriend are the closest people to me and I think it's been difficult because I have been up and down and it has probably been hard for them. They probably see what I can’t see. For example they saw me at the hospital and I could’ve died and now I’m okay."
Darcey is determined to continue with her dream of representing her country at this year's Miss World, which is set to take place in May.
She said: "I am definitely going to compete in this year’s Miss World. They’ve told me that I can go in in whatever capacity I am able to do. With that it will be a case of playing it by ear and seeing closer towards the time where my body’s at and how I’m feeling within myself."
