Woman broke almost every bone in her body after drink-drive smash - and then tried to die by suicide

A woman said she "survived twice" after attempting suicide following a smash with a drink-driver which broke nearly all the major bones in her body.

Rachel Downes, then 28, was driving to a photo shoot when she was hit head-on, putting her in a coma for three weeks. When she asked doctors what bones she had broken he said "it’d be easier for me to tell you what isn’t broken" - and pointed at her shins and said, "Just these",

Unable to rationalise why she had been involved in the crash she attempted suicide. Rachel, from Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire, said: "Thankfully - and I mean that with every fibre of my being - I never succeeded. But it’s extraordinary to think that I went from being so close to losing my life in the car crash to then attempting to take it. In a way, I feel like I’ve survived twice.

“I suppose that’s the butterfly effect in practice – one person’s decision to drink-drive has had all of these unimaginable consequences. It’s affected so many things in my future. I was told that I probably wouldn’t be able to give birth naturally because of the damage caused to my body."

At 10am, on November 21, 2021, Rachel, who was a part-time model was heading for a photo shoot. Rachel was driving along the A51 Rugeley Bypass when she was hit head-on by a drunk driver. She was not expected to survive the crash.

Rachel said: "It honestly feels like it was a dream. When I woke up from the coma, my body felt heavy and I couldn't move much. It’s not something you can really imagine unless you've experienced it yourself. I wanted to be up on my feet right away. I don’t think I even questioned why I was in the hospital to begin with."

An MRI scan revealed the full extent of the damage done to Rachel's body. She had suffered a brain injury and broken the top of her spine, part of her shoulder, her humerus on both sides and her elbow.

Rachel had also broken eight to 12 ribs, shattered her pelvis and broken her knee and right femur, as well as scarring all over her body.

She said: “I asked the surgeon to give me a list of what I’d broken, to which he responded, ‘It’d be easier for me to tell you what isn’t broken’ and then pointed at my shins and said, ‘Just these’.”

She added: "I don't remember specifically when I was told for the first time, but I kept having to ask my partner why I was in hospital. There were so many occasions where it must've felt to him like we were having the same conversation for the hundredth time, but I just couldn't compute anything.

"My partner wasn't there, so he couldn't give me many details, and neither could my parents, so the only people who truly knew what had gone on were the driver and potentially any witnesses. The facts are that I was left pretty much immobile following a crash that I had no memory of and that was caused by someone else's irresponsibility."

The driver was heading to a fast-food restaurant with some friends, having gone out the night before. A breathalyser test after the crash showed that he had 61 micrograms of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35. Rachel's inability to rationalise exactly why she had been involved in the crash brought about some dark trains of thought.

She said: "For a while, it felt like me against the world. I'm not a spiritual or religious person at all, but it did make me think 'How could God, the universe or whatever there is out there cause this to happen to me?'. But there I was, asking myself what I’d done to deserve it. That’s not something that you can come to terms with overnight.

“For a lot of 2022, I went into a really dark place because I was so angry and I was in so much pain. It ended up getting to the point where I really wish that I had died because I felt like life would be easier if I had. I was pushing my loved ones away, which left them feeling helpless and insignificant."

In September 2022, Rachel tried to commit suicide. Rachel said: “Not only has that man’s decision to drink-drive changed how I look, with all the scarring. It’s also eroded my autonomy and any plans that I might have had for the future and that hurts more than anything physically.”

In July 2023, the offending driver, aged 23 at the time of the collision, was sentenced to 28 months in prison and disqualified from driving for 38 months, having pleaded guilty at Stafford Crown Court to causing serious injury by dangerous driving.