Rebecca's story

After travelling in Asia for a few months, Rebecca had moved to London and started a new job with the NHS as a Speech and Language Therapist. But in July 2024, after just a few weeks of starting her new life, an incident occurred which meant Rebecca wasn’t going to be able to settle in as planned.

“We were walking to Clapham Common, I was on the inside of the footpath when my housemate Ash and I heard a really loud revving,” said Rebecca. “She remembers me grabbing her arm and shouting ‘oh my god’.”

Ash remembers being knocked to one side, into the road. But when she stood up, she saw Rebecca still on the ground.

“She hoped I would just stand up, but instead, I didn’t move.”

A driver had lost control of the vehicle and mounted the pavement, into the pedestrians. Although it hasn’t been determined exactly what happened, Rebecca’s injuries suggest she was hit by the car, thrown onto the bonnet and then under the moving car.

Due to the noise of the commotion, lots of people came out to help, including the firefighters in the station across the road from the scene. An off-duty A&E nurse was also one of the first people to attend and she helped turn Rebecca over to assess her injuries.

Various 999 calls were made and thankfully the information given highlighted the severity of Rebecca’s situation. As a result, the London’s Air Ambulance team was dispatched.

“I’ve always said there’s luck in the unluckiness. I’m so thankful for the firefighters and the off-duty nurse, and for the dispatch paramedic for sending London’s Air Ambulance.

“If the air ambulance team hadn’t been able to come to me when they did, I’m not sure I would have made it to hospital.”

You can hear from Dr John Chatterjee, who led the team attending to Rebecca, in the video below:

Once in hospital, Rebecca had a long list of injuries. She had broken the majority of her ribs on the right side, had skull fractures, a broken clavicle, a broken scapula and a degloving injury to her shoulder.

She also had multiple fractures on her spine, a dislocated hip, an open fracture on her arm as well as severe road rash across various parts of her body.

The hospital clinicians immediately fixed Rebecca’s hip and within her first few days in the intensive care unit (ICU) she underwent long surgeries on her arm and shoulder, fusing the bones back together with metal plates. An MRI scan revealed as well as a broken spine, the spinal cord was being compressed. This meant Rebecca had to be placed under spinal precautions, in a neck-to-rib brace, until she was stable enough to undergo surgery.

She remained ventilated for two weeks and in ICU for a month, before moving to the Trauma and Orthopaedic ward. Three weeks later she was able to have spinal surgery.

“After that, it was a matter of beginning to mobilise again.”

Rebecca had lost a lot of weight after being immobile and fed through her nose for so long. The number and spread of her injuries also made rehab that bit harder.

“Because of all the injuries, I didn’t have a strong part of me left,” said Rebecca. “So, it was just about pushing past a huge amount of pain. And there was so much pain, everywhere.”

Rebecca had occupational therapy and physiotherapy which began in the hospital and then continued when she was discharged to a rehabilitation unit in September 2024.

“I remember sitting up for the first time, it was weird having gravity hit me again. I had to learn how to sit and swing my legs over, learn how to stand. But every day I would do these small things.

“I had to learn how to shuffle into a wheelchair and then how to walk with various frames – all while not being able to bear weight on some of my limbs because of the breaks. I had to rely on an arm that had been crushed to do all the work.”

Through months of pain and frustration, Rebecca pushed on and focused on getting her body moving again. “I used a ‘use it or lose it’ mentality!”, she said. “I knew I had to lock in, I knew it would be worse before it got better.

“I would set goals for myself – I knew I needed to use stairs at home, so I practiced in the hospital whenever I could.”

Rebecca worked on moving her muscles and extending the range of motion she had. She also had to work on her neck muscles, ensuring her body could hold her head up again.

A year on, Rebecca is now home, back in the flat she moved into before the incident, just metres away from where the accident happened. Her dedication to her recovery has resulted in miraculous results, with her now being able to return to the gym to continue her rehabilitation programme. She is still under the support of a rehabilitation team since her discharge from the rehab centre in October.

“I am proud, I know I pushed past immense challenges to get to where I am today. But I am also so grateful to the first responders, the emergency services including London’s Air Ambulance and all the trauma clinicians in the hospital. Without them I wouldn’t have the function that I do.

“The fact that I was one of the six people the London’s Air Ambulance team attended to that day is unbelievable.”

Rebecca has to remain sensible due to the severity of the spinal fractures but continues to exercise and hopes she can return to high impact activities in the near future. In February 2025, she began her transition back to working and by May was back to full time hours.

“I didn’t want the accident to define what I had wanted from my move to London. So, I’m reclaiming what I wanted from the year I’ve missed.

“It was strange coming home to where a ghost of myself had been – my furniture was dusty and there were receipts from items I had purchased but never needed to use. I’m really looking forward to enjoying the summer in London this year, what I didn’t get to experience last year.’’

We’re so pleased for Rebecca and her family and friends and hope that her story can be a source of motivation for anyone who is on a difficult journey. In Rebecca’s own words: “there’s a job to be done, so let’s do it!”