I lost my leg in a horror rollercoaster accident… I can remember everything – it felt like driving into a brick wall | The Sun
ALTON Towers amputee Leah Washington remembers every moment of the horrific rollercoaster crash that caused her to lose her leg.
Leah was on a first date with her boyfriend Joe Pugh when the £18 million Smiler ride she was on crashed in June 2015.
Now she has garnered an almost 30,000-strong following on Instagram by sharing her progress since the shocking accident.
Leah and Joe had been enjoying a day out when the ride smacked into another cart and left them trapped for more than four hours.
She was aged 17 at the time.
The accident was put down to human error and Alton Towers' owner firm Merlin Attractions was fined £5million for health and safety breaches.
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Describing the incident, she recalled: “I can remember everything. It was like driving a car into a brick wall.
“I knew my knees were bad because I could feel flesh but I couldn’t feel pain and just thought I had broken some bones.
“I remember going really cold and my mouth went really dry then the pain hit me and I was in agony until the paramedics injected me with painkillers.”
But she and Joe — whose knees were shattered and two fingers broken in the smash – have stuck together through thick and thin.
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Last month the pair revealed their engagement, six years after they survived the devastating crash.
Others hurt in the incident included Vicky Balch, 20, from Lancashire, who had six rounds of surgery in a bid to save her leg before needing an amputation.
Daniel Thorpe, 27, from Buxton in Derbyshire, was treated for a collapsed lung and lower leg injuries.
Chanda Chauhan, 49, from Wednesbury, had surgery after suffering internal injuries.
An investigation found an engineer had wrongly restarted the Smiler ride while a stationary carriage was on the track in front of it.
Judge Michael Chambers QC described the accident as a “catastrophic failure” and said it was entirely avoidable.
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