A crash victim who could have died “five times over” will compete in Sunday’s Great North Run.
In just 20 months, Naomi Hall, 36, has recovered from horrific injuries and learned how to walk and talk again.
Tomorrow morning she will join thousands in Newcastle to run 13.1 miles, her first half marathon, in aid of her lifesavers.
Mum Naomi’s life changed for ever on a January morning in 2017 when her orange Fiat collided with another car then hit two trees.
Naomi, suspended by her seat belt, had a broken arm and leg and her bowel was out of her body. She had also fractured two vertebrae and two ribs, and punctured a lung.
The seat belt had saved her life but was also nearly killing her as it was cutting into her neck, severing an artery.
The North West Air Ambulance arrived at the crash on the M58, near Skelmersdale, Lancashire.
The ex-RAF servicewoman said: “The big yellow bird with its team of cape-less super-heroes arrived to prolong my life. I had a list of injuries long enough to kill me about five times over.”
She was taken to Liverpool’s Aintree Hospital but said: “Through the speedy intervention of the North West Air Ambulance saving my life, I had injuries to recover from.”
She said: “Doctors have told me I shouldn’t be alive.
“None of them had ever seen anybody survive injuries as serious as mine. They are even writing a medical journal article about me. One consultant had to google what happened to my bowel as she’d never seen anything like it.
“One of my broken ribs punctured a hole in my chest and the bowel popped out.
“My left leg was broken so badly it was nearly amputated and my right arm was smashed to smithereens.”
Surgeons spent 10 hours working on her abdomen before putting her in an induced coma. She woke two weeks later unable to remember who she was.
She had to take a selfie on her phone because she did not know what she looked like.
She said: “I recognised my face but did not think it was weird I was in a neck brace with all these tubes and pipes coming out of me.” Naomi had to keep looking at her wrist bracelet to remember her name. Her brain injury had also given her memory issues and changed her personality.
She explained: “I used to be really placid and wouldn’t say boo to a goose, but now I’m really assertive and don’t seem to have any social filter.”
Afghanistan veteran Naomi, who worked in logistic support and left the RAF in 2015, spent 10 weeks in hospital.
She returned to her home in Eccles, Greater Manchester, and her daughter Natasha, now ten, in a wheelchair.
In August last year she started training at her local gym. But even now, on bad days, she can forget how to walk properly and needs crutches.
But the car leasing project manager is determined to finish today’s run with personal trainer Sean Hegarty, and raise hundreds for the North West Air Ambulance.
- Sponsor Naomi at www.justgiving.com/fundraising /miss-hall2
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