The parents of a teenager who was hit by a car on her way home from college, suffering multiple injuries including a brain injury, have recalled the agonising wait to see if their daughter would survive.
Following the accident, just feet away from her own front door in Warrington, Gabby Styles, 16, was not allowed to leave her ward for five months due to the Covid pandemic and spent a total of nine months in hospital on an adult ward only being able to see her family one at a time.
The teenager came home in August 2020 and is now making a steady recovery.
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Gabby was on her way home from Winstanley College in Wigan where she was studying A-Levels in Maths, Biology and English on November 21, 2019 - her parents wedding anniversary - when the accident happened as she got off the school bus.
Her brave parents April , 59, and Les, 69, both exam invigilators, were told to expect she may not survive but they flatly refused to believe it.
April says: "Another student came to the front door and said Gabby had been hit."
She recalls how she imagined her daughter had just been clipped and did not realise the severity until she got to the scene.
In fact Gabby had a broken pelvis, broken shoulders, a broken leg and a serious head injury.
Coincidentally a doctor who was driving past at the time of the accident and pulled over to help, later looked after Gabby in Salford Royal Hospital, where he was head of critical care.
She was taken straight to the intensive care unit of Salford Royal and her devastated parents were told she may not pull through.
April recalls how their precious daughter was attached to a monitor which recorded if her brain was still working.
She says: "We looked at that monitor for two weeks, every day just clinging on to hope.
"After two weeks her brain was not worsening but they did not give her hope of a decent life."
Living in a hospital flat beneath the ward for a month, April and Les watched and monitored their daughter for 24 hours a day.
Attached to multiple tubes, Gaby remained at Salford Royal for four months, unable to sit up, walk or eat and drink.
It was while she was here that the Covid pandemic took hold of the nation and the lockdown was imposed.
Salford Royal became a designated Covid hospital and Gabby was transferred to Trafford General, where after two months she had the feeding tube removed from her stomach.
April says: Gradually, bit by bit, tubes started coming off.
"She could eat and she could sit up and walk a few steps."
Sadly, because of the pandemic Gabby was only permitted to see two of her three siblings Sam, 36, and Joanna, 35, from over the fence and no other relatives were allowed.
April says: "She was wheeled out in a wheelchair to see them and sat in the rain.
"It was hideous, some people on the ward could not have any visitors at all.
After five months at Trafford Royal and a mammoth ten months in hospital, Gabby was finally allowed home in August, last year and continues to make progress.
She uses a wheelchair, can walk a few steps with a Zimmer frame and continues to play the piano and speak Spanish.
She is now studying for a Sociology A-Level at Cronton College in Widness.
She says: "I am glad I have survived.
"I am slowly trying to rebuild my memory and I can still remember a lot of things
"A lot is coming back, although it is a bit slow.
"I was really happy I could still remember how to play the piano.
"I can still remember how to walk but it is a slow process - and I can still remember skills that I had.
"I am on an upward incline. I am having physio, which is going well and it is a work in progress."
Gabby has always been a huge fan of singer and song writer Alistair Griffin who was runner up in BBC Talent show Fame Academy in 2002 and in more recent years has collaborated with Girls Aloud star Kimberley Walsh.
She has a much loved memory of meeting him at a gig when she was 10-years-old and now the singer is paying her a special visit next week where he will be performing for her in her own garden as part of his Covid Heroes tour.
During the tour Alistair will be calling in on people nominated by their loved ones as Covid heroes for a special personal gig.
Gabby says: "I am so excited, I can't wait."
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