Doctors save woman’s legs after she was crushed by drink-driver in Bruges

 
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Benedict Moore-Bridger22 January 2013
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A British woman crushed by a drink-driver while on holiday in Belgium has had her legs saved and can speak after emerging from a coma.

Deborah Dale, 34, and her partner Simon Huxtable, 44, were seriously injured when a speeding Mercedes saloon travelling the wrong way down a one-way street hit them, pinning them against a wall and crushing their legs as they strolled in the historic Old Town in Bruges on New Year’s Day.

Police initially said that doctors at the city’s St Jan Hospital had been forced to amputate Ms Dale’s legs. But family friends revealed today that doctors had managed to save them after numerous operations. It also emerged that she is able to talk to relatives.

“It is pretty much a certainty her legs can be saved,” said a family friend. “She now has to have plastic surgery on them, but they will not have to be amputated.

“She has been in a medically induced coma but she is able to talk now. Her parents have been back and forward to Belgium, along with her 14-year-old daughter, and she has been talking to them.”

Ms Dale’s mother Diana, 64, from Ealing, said she was not yet ready to speak about the incident but that there “may be an update soon”. She has kept a bedside vigil in Belgium with her husband Roger, 66.

News of Ms Dale’s recovery comes as the 22-year-old man who hit her and Mr Huxtable — who live in David Cameron’s constituency of Witney, Oxfordshire — is believed to have had his driving licence returned after being banned for just 15 days. A magistrate will decide within the next few months if further charges should be brought.

Bruges police said the driver was exceeding the 30km speed limit when he ploughed into the couple after failing to stop at a T-junction following an all-night New Year’s Eve party in the city centre.

Inspector Philippe Dankrey, of Bruges police, said: “He drove a bit too fast and he had too much alcohol in his blood. Then he hit the couple. They were squashed between the car and the front of a house. Neighbours heard the victims screaming and came out of their houses to help.”

Kevin Ruxton, the father of Ms Dale’s daughter, said the “shocking” case illustrated that drink-driving was treated too leniently on the Continent. The computer engineer from west London said: “In Belgium and France, drink-driving is no big deal. It is a slap on the wrist, but in the UK if you are caught drink-driving it is your job, your career, your livelihood. Different laws need to be imposed over there.”

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