SURVIVING & THRIVING

Despite two devastating childhood accidents that left her with permanent disability and in constant, pain, bride-to-be Sophie is embracing life and doesn't want anyones pity

- PECULIA MUSHWANA

HER injuries were so horrific doctors told her parents the best thing they could do for her would be to turn off her life support.

Sophie Delezio was just five years old at the time and she'd already been through so much.

At the age of two she'd been playing with her friends at a nursery school in Sydney, Australia, when a car crashed through the window of her classroom. She was trapped underneath the vehicle and severely burnt when it burst into flames.

Sophie was left with third-degree burns over 85% of her body, lost both her feet, several fingers and her right ear as a result of the catastrophic damage.

Australians were shocked by the freak accident - which is thought to have occurred when the driver of the car suffered a seizure at the wheel - and rallied behind the toddler.

But their sympathy soon turned to admiration as plucky Sophie got on with her life despite the challenges she faced.

Then, in a tragic twist, Sophie was involved in another accident three years later and this time her injuries were even worse.

Her nanny had been pushing her in a wheelchair over a pedestrian crossing when a speeding car hit Sophie, tossing her 18 metres into the air.

The impact was so severe it triggered a heart attack as well as bleeding on the brain and left her with a broken jaw, shattered ribs, a fractured collarbone and a punctured lung.

"She was in a coma and because the injuries were so extensive she was on life support and she could have gone at any minute, her mother, Carolyn, says.

In the agonising days that followed, Carolyn and her husband, Ron, faced an impossible decision: leave their daughter hooked up to a ventilator and hope for the best or switch off the machine and put an end to the pain.

"No one had survived her injuries before so no one could guide us about what quality of life would mean for Sophie, Carolyn says.