Yeovil mum: It's a miracle my family got out of crash alive

A Yeovil mum who spent eight days in a coma after a horrific car crash has spoken of the day her family – including a five-month-old baby – miraculously escaped death.

Lisa-Marie Stoneley was on her way home from last year’s Ilminster Carnival with partner Louis Wood and daughter Faith – now nine months old – when they were involved in a head-on collision with another car on the B3168 at Bay Hill near Dillington.

Her 15-year-old son Ryan Roe, and his friend Jamie Steer, now 16, were also in the car which Miss Stoneley had to be cut free from by firefighters after the smash.

The mum-of-two was rushed to Derriford Hospital in Plymouth by helicopter where she was put on a ventilator after she stopped breathing.

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She spent the next eight days in a coma and a total of ten weeks in hospital.

She suffered two broken legs, swelling of the brain, fractured ribs, a cracked elbow, a fractured spine, a shattered pelvis, ripped cartilage in both knees, dislocated and fractured ankle, a dislocated toe and all but one of her vertebrae were damaged or broken.

She said: “We thought it would be nice to take Faith to a proper family carnival and see all the lights, but it didn’t end how we planned.”

Miraculously, baby Faith escaped without injury, while Louis, 36, and Ryan both had broken knuckles. Unfortunately, Jamie suffered serious injuries and spent weeks in intensive care. The Stanchester Academy student only recently returned to school.

Miss Stoneley, 34, of Romsey Road, said: “His main artery was severed upwards. He was so lucky. If it gone across it would have killed him there and then.

“We would normally have had Faith on the driver’s side of the back seat but for some reason that night we put her on the passenger’s side. I will never understand why we did it but as a result she missed the whole impact.

“I didn’t see Faith for five-and-a-half weeks after the accident. I was feeding her myself so had only been away from her for about an hour – so to go from that was really hard.”

Miss Stoneley is still bound to a wheelchair and has had extensive surgery to fit screws in her pelvis and metal bars in both her legs.

Although awaiting further surgery, she hopes to one day walk again. But the health care assistant has been told she will not be able to return to her former career which involves a lot of manual work.

She added: “It’s baby steps at the minute. It is frustrating as I was very active before. The way I look at it is I could be really angry and really upset but then the only person who would be affected is me. I would rather look at it that we all got out of it alive.

“I’ve got two legs and two feet, and I’ve got the opportunity to walk again so I would rather focus on the positive and get on with my life instead of thinking ‘what if’.

“We can’t change anything, it’s already happened.”