Alton Towers crash victims arrive residence after Majorca honeymoon

Alton Towers crash amputee Leah Washington has returned from her dream honeymoon with partner Joe Pugh – nine years after the pair were involved in a horror smash on The Smiler rollercoaster at Alton Towers.

The loved-up couple were seen at Manchester Airport wearing matching white hoodies and black baseball caps while pulling along their luggage.

Leah, now Mrs Washington-Pugh, shared in an Instagram post that upon arriving home they found their bed decorated with ‘just married’ balloons.

Doctors were forced to amputate her left leg in order to save her life after a horror smash saw both Leah and Joe sustain life-changing injuries on June 2, 2015. 

The carriage they were in smashed into a second stationary car at around 50mph.

The couple got engaged during a romantic getaway to Italy in 2022, before Leah, 26, enjoyed a hen do with a dozen close friends and family in the Algarve, Portugal last year.

They then tied the knot in a dazzling ceremony at a country house hotel in Yorkshire on May 25 before flying off to Majorca where they posted snaps of themselves enjoying the sunshine.

Newly married Leah posed confidently in a white bikini while wearing her prosthetic leg, which she removes before taking a dip in the pool. 

Taking to social media to update their followers and wellwishers, the couple posted several loved-up pictures as they thanked the public for their support.

Before leaving for their honeymoon, Leah, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, said: ‘What an amazing couple of days! 

‘Since getting married on Saturday, the amount of messages and love shown toward us has been overwhelming!

‘We want to thank our family, friend’s, bridesmaid and groomsmen for making our day so memorable and worth the 2 years of planning. Now time to celebrate on our mini moon.’

And Joe wrote on his social media: ‘What an amazing couple of days! Since getting married on Saturday, the amount of messages & love shown towards us has been overwhelming.

‘We want to thank our family, friends, bridesmaids & groomsmen for making our day so memorable and worth the two years of planning. Now time to celebrate in Majorca for the next couple of days.’

But the couple’s wedding was far from always on the cards: in the aftermath of the Alton Towers crash, which saw Leah lose a leg and Joe smash both kneecaps as well as lose the ability to move one of his fingers, the couple drifted apart.

Then aged just 17 and 18, they overcame their struggles and have since got married in a beautiful ceremony surrounded by friends and family.

Leah stunned in a dazzling white wedding dress bedecked in jewels and carried a voluminous bouquet of white roses.

She wore sparkling Chanel earrings with a single pearl hanging from each one.

Her now-husband Joe opted for a simple black tuxedo, with a single matching white flower adorning his buttonhole. 

Images from the intimate ceremony, which the Mail was granted exclusive access to, showed the couple celebrating with family friends as they shared a kiss outside the wedding venue.

Leah previously shared how she and her friends were caught up in last summer’s air traffic control chaos on the return from her hen party.

She had shared several clips of her hen party singing, dancing and downing shots at a beach club in the Algarve in August.

Her fiancé Joe even ordered 15 pink shots for the group from the club, later joking he was setting up expectations for his stag party, which was yet to come.

The couple got engaged during a romantic getaway to Italy in 2022.

Leah took to Instagram to share adorable snaps of the couple during the trip, as well as the substantial diamond rock which sat on her finger.

Speaking previously about how their relationship suffered in the aftermath of the tragic incident, Leah told Ok!: ‘If you’d told either of us during the weeks that followed our horrific accident at Alton Towers that we’d be planning our wedding now, I don’t think we’d have believed it.’

Leah has been outspoken about her recovery since the crash on social media.

She often shares clips of her participating in various sports, partying and even modelling.

In a post last year, she wrote: ‘8 years since my life flipped, how time has flown!

‘A brief little journey from then until now, a 17 year old girl thinking what was going to happen next, under confident after surgery & struggling to think positive…

‘Fast forward 8 years and I feel the best I have in a long time, planning my dream wedding, feeling continued improvements in my fitness & us of my prosthetic along side the support from my friends, family & followers.’

An investigation into the 2015 accident concluded that the crash was due to human error; an engineer had wrongly restarted the ride while a stationary carriage was on the track in front of it.

Alton Towers owner Merlin Attractions were fined £5million for health and safety breaches which were blasted by Judge Michael Chambers QC as a ‘catastrophic failure’.

At least 16 were injured and five people were seriously hurt.

They were fined an initial £5million, and interim payments have covered Leah and Joe’s medical and physio bills to date – but the pair have also submitted a ‘substantial’ compensation claim.

Leah’s £60,000 prosthetic leg – which contains a microprocessor knee – will need replacing every few years, which will amount to hundreds of thousands of pounds over her lifetime.

She still suffers from crippling pain and fatigue after standing for lengthy periods of time.

A second woman, Vicky Balch, from Lancashire, was also forced to undergo a leg amputation after the crash.