'I survived crash after husband's M1 heart attack'

Sonia Meakin suffered extensive injuries and underwent 19 operations

When Sonia Meakin's husband Mark had a heart attack while driving their car on the M1 in Nottinghamshire, she knew she had to act fast.

Sonia tried to steer them to safety and told Mark they were "probably going to die" before they crashed on an exit slip road.

When she woke up in the Queen's Medical Centre (QMC) in Nottingham after two weeks in a coma with multiple injuries, medics broke the news Mark, her husband of more than 20 years, had died.

Now she is learning to walk again after 19 operations to reconstruct her limbs and hopes to be home in time for Christmas.

The pair had just returned from a holiday and had been driving to meet friends for a meal in Nottingham.

They were on the M1 on the evening of 11 July, when church pastor Mark, 51, said he felt like he was "going to blackout".

Sonia and Mark were married for more than 20 years

"I realised quickly I had to jump in to steer. It was a split-second thought that I had to drive the car," said Sonia.

"It was very difficult, I had to get his leg off the accelerator, and I was pressing the stop/start button, thinking 'if I can stop the car', which I knew I couldn't.

"I was trying to think of everything... I knew I was in dire trouble."

Sonia, of Spondon in Derby, spotted the junction 26 slip road at Nuthall, in Nottinghamshire, and tried to pull the car over. By now, she said, Mark was unresponsive.

"I said to him 'we are both going to probably die', we were still at high speed, his foot hadn't come off the accelerator," she said.

Their car hit other vehicles and flipped over.

Mark was a church pastor in and around Derby

A Nottinghamshire Police report said the crash happened at 18:40 BST.

Sonia and Mark's car hit another vehicle and caused a domino effect with a further three cars becoming involved.

The driver of the car, which was hit directly, was discharged from hospital the following day.

The driver in the third vehicle was not injured, but his wife and 11-year-old daughter were. However, they were not seriously harmed.

The next thing Sonia remembers was the voice of a firefighter who attended the crash.

She looked to her right and saw Mark on the ground, and heard another person say they had been trying to revive him for the past 45 minutes.

Despite their efforts, Mark died at the scene.

Emergency services treated Mark at the scene for about 45 minutes but he died at the scene

Sonia was rushed to hospital under blue lights.

Her injuries were extensive. She had broken her fibula, tibia, both her wrists and elbows, wounds to her stomach, diaphragm and spleen.

The grandmother of two said she was "stitched back together like a ragdoll" and praised the numerous medical professionals who saved her life.

Doctors and nurses could not believe she had survived such traumatic injuries.

She was not well enough to attend Mark's funeral and had to watch it via video-link.

Sonia is now learning to walk again with the help of medics at Nottingham City Hospital

Despite her ongoing recovery, Sonia knows she will be returning home without the support of her loving husband.

"It's going to be hard going home because I left the house a married woman and I haven't been back - when I do, I'll be [a] widow," she said.

"I'm finding that will be a whole new process there but I've got a good family behind me so I know I'll be fine."

Sonia is now learning to walk and feed herself again with the help of medics at Linden Lodge, an NHS rehabilitation centre at Nottingham City Hospital.

The 56-year-old also has the longer-term ambition of returning to work, as a hospital midwife in Nottingham.

Speaking about her recovery, Linden Lodge head of service, Javvad Haider, said he was "so proud" of Sonia's recovery.

"It's remarkable, he said.

"I met her when she was at the QMC after her traumatic accident and the difference now to where she was back then and where I anticipated her to be in the next few months, is night and day."

The new NHS National Rehabilitation Centre is set in parkland in the grounds of the Stanford Hall Rehabilitation Estate in Nottinghamshire

Sonia was due to move into the new state-of-the-art, 70-bed National Rehabilitation Centre (NRC) at Stanford Hall in Nottinghamshire.

The £105m centre, run by Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) NHS Trust, was first proposed in 2009.

It was due to welcome its first 18 patients on 11 November, but the opening was delayed after the facility failed water quality checks.

It is now expected to open to the first raft of patients in the new year.