Miracle librarian reflects on how lucky she is to be alive after horror crash near Northampton

Yvonne Nowik, 39, said she had never even broken a fingernail before she collided with a lorry last year on the way to work on the A43, near Holcot.

One year on, the accident has given her a new perspective on life, it has restored her faith in humanity and has given the mum-of-one a new-appreciation for how amazing the human body is.

Yvonne was heading into Brixworth Library on November 14, 2019, a route she had travelled, as she described, 100 times before.

This time, the weather was bad, and according to Yvonne, police told her that she hit a puddle, lost control of the car and glided into the other side of the road.

Yvonne was cut out of her car and airlifted by medics to University Hospital Coventry & Warwickshire where she had five life-saving operations after breaking her arm, leg, neck as well as popping her hip out of its socket and cracking her knee and pelvic bone.

She said: "I had never even broken a fingernail before this and I then went and broke everything at once.

"I remember when I arrived at Coventry I was conscious and they gave me the button for the morphine and I was triple pressing it because I did not think it was working, it was extreme pain."

It was only on Christmas Day, after five-and-a-half weeks of being in an induced coma, Yvonne woke up. Her first memory was opening a Christmas present and thanking her lucky stars she was saved that day by doctors.

She added: "I feel like there is a reason why I survived because everyone flew over from Poland, my sister flew from Holland and my in-laws flew from Spain to say their goodbyes because my injuries were so bad.

"Maybe the reason I've survived is because I'll go onto save someone else's life, there must be more to it.

"There is no other choice than to fight when you have a family and a child. You try to see the good in the situation, I kept telling myself, I'm here, I might be in pain but I'm alive, it is a miracle."

Doctors waited on the night of the incident until her husband, Wesley, could travel back from Manchester so he could see her before she was operated on.

"The doctors were fabulous," she added. "They saved my life and I can't thank everyone enough.

"In 10 days it will be a year since it happened. When you drive that way now you can still see where I stopped when I was approaching the roundabout."

Days after Yvonne's crash a crowdfunding page was set up and £2,000 was raised for her husband Wesley who quit his job to look after their now four-year-old daughter Zosia.

Wesley needed the money at that time more than ever with no wages coming in to pay their bills and fund petrol to the hospital for three months before Yvonne came out this year in January.

Yvonne's friend also organised a Christmas present donation for Zosia.

"She got so many gifts. People were so generous," Yvonne, from Kettering, said. "My faith in humanity was completley restored. We were shown so much kindness and love. I was overwhelmed when I woke up, I had so many cards and I read them all for a week, I could not believe this many people cared. It was phenomanal.

"I can't knock on every single door to say thank you to the people who have helped me to recover, but if I could, I would."