Married couple recall traumatic Bolton crash as ‘I bear in mind each single second’

Georgina Daniels and husband Tom were among four passengers in a taxi struck head-on by a Seat Leon on January 11. Four people died in the collision, including their taxi driver and three teenagers in the other vehicle

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A woman injured along with her husband in a horror crash says she remembers “every single second of it… I remember it as if it was 10 minutes ago.”

Georgina Daniels, a 28-year-old woman from Bolton, was just beginning to enjoy married life with her husband, Tom, also 28. Then, tragedy struck.

Seven months into their wedded bliss, on what ‘should have been an exciting night’, their lives were changed forever due to their injuries.

Georgina and Tom, along with their two ‘best friends’, were in a taxi in the early hours of January 11 when they were hit head-on by another vehicle, a Seat Leon.

The collision resulted in four fatalities, including their 54-year-old taxi driver, Mosrab Ali, and three teenagers in the other car – Mohammed Jibrael Mukhtar, 18, Farhan Patel, 18 and 19-year-old Mohammed Danyaal.

On January 17, Georgina recounted the scene of ‘devastation’ to the Manchester Evening News. “It was quite a long event, we didn’t get into ambulances quickly,” she recalled.

“I can’t fathom how we’re all still alive – it should have taken our lives. I have no idea how we’re all still here after seeing what happened to everyone and the state we are all in.

“The biggest shock of all is that we are all still here. It was just devastation.”

Miraculously, five passengers from both the taxi and the Seat Leon survived. An 18-year-old man, who was in the Seat, ‘remained in hospital for treatment on minor injuries’, as of Monday.

Meanwhile, Georgina, Tom and their two friends – a 29-year-old woman and a 30-year-old man – are still in hospital, grappling with their severe injuries.

The quartet were taxi passengers returning from a party thrown to bid farewell to another pair of friends setting off for an adventure in Australia.

Georgina recalled: “They are going on the journey of a lifetime, and we had the best night with the best group of friends, we’re all so close. It was such a good way of sending them off.

“It should have been such an exciting part of their lives, for the night to end that way it did – it’s shocking to say the least. It’s one extreme to the other.”

Now, she and her husband are dealing with both physical injuries and emotional trauma.

“Between [Tom and I], we’ve had four surgeries,” she revealed.

“It’s been a really difficult experience for all four of us [who were passengers in the taxi].

“Tom remembers bits of it, a lot of it he doesn’t remember. For some reason, I remember every single second of it.

“That’s helped with statements and explaining it to people around us. I remember it as if it was 10 minutes ago.”

In the wake of the incident, the couple is faced with a daunting prospect no young person should ever have to confront – how they will manage the enormous costs for the round-the-clock care they anticipate needing for a considerable period.

Friends of the four survivors have initiated a fundraising campaign, eager to support them through the unimaginable days to come. In just one night, £17,000 was collected in donations.

As of the evening of 17 January, the page has amassed £30,615 towards a £40,000 goal.

“Our injuries are life-changing, we don’t know the extent of them yet, and they’ll require so much aftercare,” shared Georgina, an NHS manager.

“That’s why the fundraiser was made, for anything that insurance may not cover.

“We’ve had no idea what to do, it’s a situation that, unless it’s happened to you, you’re just so ignorant to what it feels like. It’s every minute of every day, it’s so hard to describe.

“As much pain as we’ve both been in, the mental side of it is one hundred times worse.

“We were in a taxi so it’s not straightforward what happens now. It could be years down the line before we come to a conclusion. Investigations can take 18 months.

“We’re likely to be off work over that time and have care that needs to be financially funded.”

They face confronting all of this without each other.

“Our wedding was only seven months ago, we’ve been together more than 10 years,” said Georgina.

“We’ve basically always lived together – even when we didn’t have our own place, we would pack bags and stay at each other’s mum’s house for three or four days at a time.

“We’ve never been separate for too long. Now it’s our first year of marriage and we are going to have to live apart with life-changing injuries, with no end date.

“My legs are okay but my other injuries are going to need 24-hour care, but Tom now has major mobility issues, especially using stairs. We will both need 24-hour care for a long time.

“All of the recovery, rebuilding, the things we will have to get over. And we will have to do it apart. It’s cruel. There are no words to describe it.”

Their futures are currently ‘changing by the minute’, as Georgina explained.

“[Our outcome] changes every single minute. We have both got so many different injuries, we can’t make one decision without looking at the rest.

“We have no expectations, we are just living hour by hour. We are trying to be positive and trying to get back to how we were in those pictures. That’s the only thing we can look forward to.”

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