Survivor Kady cheated death and beat the odds to forge radio career

In 2015, Kady Middleton was the victim of a hit-and-run by a drunk driver, which left her clinging on to her life. The accident happened in January 2015, halfway through Kady’s first year of her journalism degree.

While her course mates were busy with lectures, Kady spent a month in and out of the operating theatre as doctors sought to repair the substantial damage her body had suffered – including a broken cheekbone and eye socket, a torn oesophagus, 10 broken ribs, a torn liver and pancreas, a burst stomach artery, two collapsed lungs and a broken leg.

But it was a leaking artery that posed the most significant danger to Kady’s life, and with it going undetected for weeks, she had, at best, days to live.“I was lying on a hospital bed and I was dying, the doctors told my parents to expect the worse, but it’s not like me to give up,” said Kady.

“I just wanted to go to sleep, but the doctors wouldn’t let me, because I wouldn’t have woken up. Luckily they found the location of the leak and I had an operation, which saved my life.”

After cheating death, Kady was back on her feet within months and was hard at work studying again. With the help from course mates and her lecturers she graduated in 2017 with a top degree in journalism.

After stints working for the BBC during her studies, Kady took a permanent digital marketing job in her home city of Southampton after graduating.

When a permanent job at BBC Radio Solent cropped up last year, Kady applied and she bagged herself her dream job.

Lecturer at the University of Northampton, Kate Williams, who also works for the BBC, was a big influence on Kady and encouraged her to take the job.

The 25-year-old added: “Kate encouraged and inspired me to go for it and I took the leap.

"Since starting last summer I’ve already made the step up to a digital producer role, which I took on in January.”

While she has one eye on the future, she’s also appreciative of the past and the second chance she got at life after her accident.

“I could have died, but I didn’t and I am not the sort to give up,” said Kady.