BY AUSTIN LYNCH
Almost ten years ago, on the way home from her 19th birthday party, Lizzie Keys was involved in a car crash which totally changed her life. Friday night is the 10th anniversary of the crash in which Lizzie, who was sitting in the middle of the back seat of the car, broke her back leaving her paralysed from the middle of her chest down.
On Thursday, over 1,200 Year 13 and Year 14 students from schools in Fermanagh and across the border heard Lizzie's story when she took part in the Police Road Safety Roadshow at the Lakeland Forum.
Lizzie explains that when the car she was travelling in left the road and struck a tree, her body was thrown forward and then thrown backwards 'like a rag doll'. Lizzie says her back 'broke like a stick' and she compared the force of the crash to 'like a bomb going off in your body'.
"I broke my back at the C6 level, which means I am paralysed from the high chest down," Lizzie explained, and she went on to reveal she was only six cms away from losing the power of her arms as well".
Like every other teenager, Lizzie believed something like this would never happen to her, but it did and Lizzie has spent the last ten years in a wheelchair.
Lizzie agreed to tell her story in the hope that by showing young people what can happen in a car crash it might save the life of even one person.
"Life can change in a split second," Lizzie told the young people.
Immediately after the car crash, Lizzie was taken to A&E in the Tyrone County Hospital in Omagh before being transferred to the Royal Victoria in Belfast the next morning, a Saturday.
"I got the official diagnosis at 8.00pm that Saturday night. A doctor told me 'you will never walk again. See you in the morning'."
Lizzie said that while this was rather short and harsh way to do it, she wasn't left with any false hope that she might walk again one day.
When talking to the students at the Road Safety Roadshow, Lizzie asks them all to stand up, and then sit down again. She then tells them she has lost the ability to stand up ever again after being involved in the car crash. She also revealed she wasn't wearing a seat belt when the car hit the tree.
After the collision, Lizzie spent almost five months in hospital before getting home full-time, although she said she was lucky her parents owned a B&B so the house already had wider doors and was more wheelchair accessible.
She stressed that without the support of the nursing, and rehabilitation staff, she wouldn't have pulled through. She also stresses that families get badly affected by something like this, and that they have to learn to cope with this new situation as well as the victim.
Lizzie now lives independently and, having completed a HNC in Business and Finance through Fermanagh College, runs her own business from home.
Being in a wheelchair is now reality for Lizzie, and it just took a split second for this to happen to her.
"One day you're walking around thinking nothing bad is ever going to happen and, suddenly, you're in a wheelchair for the rest of your life."
One of the hardest things for Lizzie is how people react you her being in a wheelchair. "You realise that this is how people see me now."
She hoped that by taking part in the Roadshow might give her some deal of closure on the crash but, she also sincerely hoped that the young people attending will heed the warnings about speed and heed the warnings about driving in a reckless manner.
Lizzie is there as an example of what can happen when things go badly wrong.
"If they (young people) pay attention to all the advice they are being given out," she said, "they will stand a much better chance,.
Lizzie admitted she still has a phobia about driving, and that she has tragically lost numerous friends over the past 10 years due to car collisions.
