Brave Harriet Barnsley couldn't see, speak or move a single part of her body when she woke from a bus stop crash that killed her best pal. She was on the brink of death after a dangerous driver travelling at 101mph smashed into the pair as they waited for a bus.
Memory of the incident itself was lost through a brain injury, but instead Harriet vividly recalls the "psychosis nightmare" that left her believing she was "dead and living in hell" years on. And to cope with the death of Rebecca McManus, the now 29-year-old pretends her childhood friend is still studying away at University, BirminghamLive reports.
Almost eight years after the Hagley Road West tragedy just outside Birmingham on May 31, 2014, Harriet has just undergone further surgery to repair damage to her leg. Meanwhile, the speeding driver who killed her 21-year-old friend Rebecca and left Harriet with life-changing injuries has been free from prison for years - and is legally able to drive again.
"The worst possible thing that could happen to me has already happened. I woke up and thought it wasn't a real world, and five years later I believed that I was dead," said Harriet, who stressed that she is lucky to be alive.
Harriet, then a final year university student, had been waiting to catch a bus to a hen party with childhood friend 'Bec' when Sukvinder Mannan smashed his red Mitsubishi Evolution into the shelter at more than 100mph amid a street race with another motorist.
The pair had been friends ever since they met at primary school aged just five. Speaking from her home, she continues: "I woke up from a coma, I couldn't see, I couldn't talk, I couldn't move a single part of my body.
"Apparently for the first two weeks I'd wake up and I couldn't remember what I'd been told and just not know I was in hospital. When I woke up I didn't know how old I was. I forgot I'd been to university.
She had been a 'three' on the Glasgow coma scale - the lowest a patient can be without dying. "I slowly realised that my mum was next to me and that it was actually a real situation rather than this fake imaginary world. "Eventually mum was like, 'Bec was with you, she didn't make it'", she says.
She adds: "When I learnt it (about her death), I just pretended she was still at University, that's just how I coped with it - and still how I cope."
But five years after the crash, Harriet "developed the most severe mental health problems" as a result of her trauma. She said: "I lived in hell, it was psychosis. It was horrendous. I couldn't remember the crash, but I can remember the psychosis nightmare."
From the psychosis and the brain injury, Harriet developed organic bi-polar, but she refuses to let her trauma ruin her life.
"The episodes that I have had have helped me grieve for what happened that I couldn't remember, I feel a lot more free and like I've worked through lots of pain."
She now relies on a wheelchair, or crutches, to get around and has to use a disability chair for showers. But despite the never ending struggles and devastation caused by the dangerous driver, the crash is often referred to as an 'accident' by the public and in law.
It is a term Harriet, alongside other victims' families, find "offensive" and are currently campaigning to change through a Government petition. The petition, which can be signed here, hopes to see the Road Traffic Act and other legislation amended to refer to collisions, not accidents. She believes the amendment would be an important stepping stone for dangerous driving to be taken more seriously.
"It would be an important puzzle piece or next step for dangerous driving to be taken more seriously," suggests Harriet.
"Any time anyone refers to it as an accident, it just makes you have less consideration for that person because people say 'you were driving a car and it crashed?' It's offensive. It's an important stepping stone to change general attitudes. For years it's been a road accident and that doesn't get taken seriously so people are more lax with things because of that."
She said: "The freedom that we have with cars is excessive and unnecessary and should be addressed. It's education that's needed. I don't know what it is in humans that makes us think; 'it doesn't matter if I look at my phone or go three miles over the speed limit because I can do that'. But everyone does it."
Harriet can do little bits of walking and expresses the joy of being able to stand up as "wonderful", but she will never run again as a result of the speeding driver's actions. "Because I had such a severe brain injury, it means that I always have fatigue. I used to be able to walk miles and miles, I used to go running, I can't ever run again," she explains.
Though she says concentration doesn't come easy for her following the brain injury, Harriet is amazingly writing a book, volunteering for a number of charities and also training to become a counsellor.
Asked about the drivers who caused the death of her friend and her life-changing injuries, she says she "doesn't think about them". She has instead made her peace with what happened and would "forgive them" if she ever came face to face with them.
*Mannan, 33, of Halesowen, was jailed for eight years after pleading guilty to causing death and serious injury by dangerous driving. The BMW driver he was racing, Inderjit Singh, 31, of Wolverhampton, was jailed for a year.
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