My fight back from horror crash

By emoore edd moore and bill richards herald reporters

A YOUNG Plymouth sportswoman has spoken of her 'miracle' recovery following a horrific car crash which nearly killed her.

Rhiannon Lawrence's loved ones were told to "say their goodbyes" to the international fencer after her body took the full force of an articulated lorry that ploughed into her car.

The 22-year-old, pictured right, lost her gall bladder, her spleen and half her liver in the horror smash, pictured left.

She also broke two vertebrae, nine ribs and a leg, fractured her skull and pelvis and suffered collapsed lungs and a collapsed diaphragm.

When Rhiannon was flown to hospital, doctors – stunned that she was still alive – gave her just hours to live.

But against all the odds she regained consciousness 17 days later, and is now celebrating the success of her ever-expanding fencing club and is hoping to represent her country again.

Her courageous recovery has already seen her coach teenage students to the World Championships, and she is determined to return to the international arena herself.

Speaking for the first time about her ordeal, Rhiannon, from Beacon Park, told The Herald: "I'm still confident that once I'm back to full strength I can compete at the top again.

"I just feel so, so lucky to be alive.

"I was bleeding internally and the surgeon didn't know where from.

"They told my mum when she arrived that there was no chance I was going to make it, that it would be pretty much a miracle if I survived the night.

"They told my family and my boyfriend to say their goodbyes."

Rhiannon, then 21, was airlifted to the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro after the crash in April last year.

Travelling back from coaching youngsters in the city, her sat-nav took her off at the wrong junction of the A30 at Journeys End, near Truro.

She pulled her red Rover 200 into a lay-by to turn around, but was struck by the lorry while doing a U-turn.

Three fire crews battled to free her and the Cornwall Air Ambulance and the Royal Navy Search and Rescue Sea King helicopter were sent to the scene.

After surviving the first night in intensive care, Rhiannon was airlifted to London's Kings College Hospital for a liver transplant.

But still in an induced coma, her body fought back – and 17 days later she regained consciousness without needing the new organ.

Her memories of the crash, and waking up, are blurred.

But Rhiannon said: "I knew I was in hospital when I woke up but I didn't know why.

"I had no idea that my mum and my family had spent three or four weeks in hospital with me.

"It wasn't really me who went through it all, because I was unconscious. It was my family.

"They were told I wasn't going to make it, then they were told I could have brain damage, or that I could be paralysed.

"They had to go through some pretty bad emotional stuff, so they took the brunt of it."

Brave Rhiannon left hospital on crutches and just seven weeks after the smash she was barking out instructions – albeit from a chair – to students at her Salle Lawrence club, launched just before the accident.

Her recovery has been a long one and as recently as December surgeons removed a shard of glass and other debris left lodged in her skull since the crash.

Painful headaches, scars on her torso and problems lifting heavy objects are constant reminders of her brush with death.

But the talented epéeist said: "I struggle with fencing myself at the moment. But I'm only 22 and still have a competitive edge inside driving me.

"I've competed at internationals before for GB, and intend to do so again. If I don't it won't be for the want of trying.

"My aim now is to turn Salle Lawrence into a very successful club. I'd just set up the club when I missed a month of my life."

Aided by boyfriend Ian Lichfield, 28, Rhiannon regularly teaches 250 people a week aged between eight and 60. Some weeks she passes on fencing skills to up to 500 city schoolchildren.

Celebrating the club's first birthday has been made all the sweeter by the success of protégée Toni Denham.

Toni, then 15, was in the seat behind Rhiannon in the horror smash.

She was also airlifted to hospital after managing to clamber out of a window, while her brother, in the passenger seat, escaped with just cuts and bruises after being knocked unconscious.

Rhiannon has since coached Toni to both the European and World under-17 championships, while Salle Lawrence scooped a series of podium places in the recent Plymouth Open and her sister Corinna, 19, looks on target to secure a place in Great Britain's 2012 Olympics team.

Remarkably, Rhiannon insists the accident has not changed her outlook on life; she has even got back behind the wheel.

"I've never been one to sit down and do nothing," she added. "I think it's changed quite a lot of people around me though.

"I'm just really pleased to have pulled through and am immensely grateful to the surgeons, doctors and nursing staff."

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