Elly Latif, a second year biomedical science student featured on a new BBC programme called Countryside 999 on 17th February when she and her boyfriend Daniel Thomas were involved in a serious car crash last year. She suffered several injuries when their car’s wheels locked up and it collided with a lorry on the way back to her home in Stockton from Flamingoland in Yorkshire on April 25 last year.
Elly, 20, and Daniel, 23, had to wait an hour after the crash for the emergency services and then another hour for the firefighters to cut them out of the car. Elly suffered serious injuries including bruised lungs, a shattered and dislocated elbow, broken ribs and a broken femur. Because of her serious injuries, she was glad that the Air Ambulance took her to hospital rather than an ordinary ambulance because it avoided any corners and bumps in the road as well as reducing the time it took to rush her into hospital. She needed emergency surgery to repair her femur, but this proved to not be very successful so she later underwent more surgery in October which she told SCAN has improved her state dramatically. Although she still experiences some pain and can not run, she has almost made a full recovery and she told SCAN “I’m glad to be alive”.
Elly was unconscious for a while after the crash took place although she does recall being filmed during the rescue operation that day revealing that she “hated being filmed” because she “wasn’t in a great emotional state that day”. However, she is now glad that they did film her on the day, because to her it felt like closure to see what happened from a different perspective when she watched Countryside 999.
Elly told SCAN that the University were “amazing” with their support saying that “the University really really supported me and helped me through all that”. Dr Jackie Parry who enabled her to take her exams in August since she missed most of the summer term of her first year was always on the other end of an email to reassure her. Elly says that this really helped with her recovery and allowed her to get the best grade she could get which she is extremely grateful for. Despite that, she revealed that it was difficult settling back into University and that the jump to second year was huge, especially as she missed part of her first year.
She was equally grateful to the Air Ambulance saying that she couldn’t have done without them on that day and she has even more respect for them as they don’t get any funding from the government so must get their funding from the general public. Elly told SCAN that she and her boyfriend were “so very very lucky”.
