'Learning to walk again has been the hardest thing'

Sharon Odell spent 10 weeks in hospital after the head-on crash

A woman who had to have her leg amputated after her car was ploughed into is warning drivers not to take careless risks on rural routes.

Sharon Odell, 56, from Pickering, North Yorkshire, was in a coma for two-and-a-half weeks after the crash near Thornton-le-Dale on 17 April last year.

The driver responsible for the crash, Milosz Malkowski, 34, was heading towards Pickering on the A170 and moved his VW Passat into the opposite lane as he attempted to overtake a car and a coach.

"I saw this car coming towards me and just thought, I've got nowhere to go - I did try to avoid it but he just hit me head-on and I don't remember much after that," Ms Odell said.

The teaching assistant was cut from the vehicle by emergency services and taken by air ambulance to The James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, where she stayed for 10 weeks.

"I wasn't aware of the extent of my injuries until they told me they had had to amputate my leg above the knee," she said.

Malkowski, who crashed head-on into Ms Odell's Volkswagen, admitted causing serious injury by careless driving and was jailed for 18 months.

"There have been times when I've questioned why I'm still here, and at some points wished that I wasn't because it's been so hard," Ms Odell said.

"It's hard to be positive and get up and do everything you've got to do, but my first goal was to get back to work, then I walked with an NHS leg, so setting those helped."

Ms Odell has been trying out different prosthetic legs to find one which one works best for her needs

She added: Learning to walk again, and learning to walk with something that doesn't belong to your body, is really hard work - the hardest thing I've ever done."

Sharing a warning to those who take risks while driving, she said: "Just stop and think, if you're going to do that manoeuvre - is it safe?

"If it's not and you cause an accident, it's not just your life that you're putting in danger you're putting other people's lives in danger."

She continued: "It has a ripple effect - it doesn't just affect one person, it affects everybody around that person.

"You've got to carry that for the rest of your life as well as the person you've injured."

Malkowski was in the wrong lane when the crash happened

Ms Odell is continuing her goal setting and aims to walk a 5km parkrun event along with eventually climbing Ben Nevis for a second time.

Discussing her positive outlook, she said: "There's no point dwelling on things you can't change, so I just put it away."

Solicitors Irwin Mitchell secured funding for Ms Odell from the insurers of Malkowski to make adaptations to her home and enable her to drive again.

Peter Lorence, an associate solicitor from the firm, said: "Obviously we can't turn back time, but having those funds will enable her to rebuild her life so far as is possible, give her independence back and her quality of life back."

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