A PENSIONER wants the bicycle crash which left her great-granddaughter fighting for her life to be a wake-up call for other children and their parents.

Margaret Brown is urging everyone to wear a helmet after seeing first-hand the traumatic injuries not wearing one can have.

Her six-year-old great-granddaughter Sophie Young was cycling along Deacon Street in Old Town when she swerved to avoid a car and suffered serious injuries, including a number of fractures.

The Ferndale School pupil was in a coma for a week and is now recovering well at Bristol Children's Hospital.

But it has been an agonising few weeks for Sophie’s family as they did not think she would survive.

“Nobody expected her to live, it’s been so traumatic,” said Margaret, who lives in Moredon.

“On Sunday I couldn’t stop crying I was just by the phone in limbo. Even the ambulance man that took Sophie to hospital didn’t think she would survive.

“But all our prayers and miracles have been answered. It’s an absolute marvellous hospital I can’t thank them enough.

“I went to see her on Tuesday and she started to talk, although she has stitches in her gums, and she is coming on leaps and bounds.”

Emergency services sent paramedics and two air ambulances also landed in Faringdon Road park following the crash on the afternoon of September 30.

Recalling what happened, Margaret said: “Sophie was walking with her bike and then got on it and there was a car coming up the hill so she swerved to avoid it.

“If she hadn’t swerved she would have been killed, but one minute she was on the path, next she was on the road.

“She hit this couple’s wall and they heard the bang and came out. They said she was lying on the floor with her eyes closed and blood was pouring down the hill.

“The bike was left in the couple’s house and we went back and they had a little present for Sophie, a ragdoll, but they asked ‘Is she alive?’”

The incident has also left Margaret too traumatised to get back on a bike despite riding one all her life.

She said: “When you go out on your bike you don’t think something is going to happen. This is why helmets are so important to children and I beg all parents to make sure their children wear a helmet on their heads.

“I was brought up in the slow world without the cars and it’s fast out there now. I feel in my heart if Sophie was wearing a helmet it would have saved her a bit.”

Margaret has also thanked everyone for their kind wishes for Sophie and Ferndale School for the card for the youngster.

  • The charity Cycling UK, which says it is not 'pro' or 'anti'-helmet, says on its website: “The evidence on this question is complex and contradictory, providing as much support for those who are deeply sceptical of helmets as for those who swear by them...” Further details at www.cyclinguk.org