Mum To A Miracle

Nicole wouldn't let anything stop her from having a baby

- Emmie Harrison / Mollie Tracey

At 18, I didn’t have a care in the world. I loved partying, going to the beach, trips with friends.

But, on 7 February 2009, my life changed forever.

It was a hot summer’s day. I was in the back seat of a soft top car with my friend. Two guys we’d recently met were in the front...

The next thing I remember is opening my eyes in hospital in Intensive Care.

‘You’ve been in a car accident,’ explained my mum Sandra, now 53. ‘You broke your neck.’

And that’s when I realised...

I can’t feel a thing.

My arms and legs were dead. I couldn’t even wiggle my toes. And I could only slightly move my neck.

I learnt that my friend had broken her wrists in the crash. The two guys were uninjured.

But I’d broken my cervical vertebrae, the part of your spine that connects your head and shoulders.

Then in ICU I’d caught pneumonia and had been in a coma, fighting for my life.

Coming round, it was hard to take in. But not as hard as what I was told later.

‘You’ll never be able to walk again,’ a surgeon said. ‘You’re paralysed from the neck down.’

Every emotion hit at once –anger, fear, grief, sadness. It was just overwhelming.

I couldn’t process it.

Thankfully, I had some amazing family and friends.

They kept me going as I spent nine months in hospital recovering and having physio.