Struggling to stay conscious in her mangled car after a head-on crash with a milk tanker, there was only one voice that kept mum-of-three Alison Craven going.
Suffering from serious head injuries that would require hours of facial reconstruction surgery, Alison, of Monifieth, was soothed by the calming voice of an unnamed Good Samaritan until the paramedics arrived.
She was rushed off to hospital and never saw him again, but after nearly two decades of wondering who the mystery man was, Alison has revealed the moment she burst into tears after hearing her rescuer’s voice again for the first time in 18 years.
On November 12, 1997, she had been driving along Wakefield Road in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, when the lorry pulled out in front of her.
The impact caused the steering wheel of her Ford Fiesta to break off and Alison smashed her face off the steering rod, causing horrific injuries. It was then that a man came to her aid, spoke calmly to her and even removed her windscreen mirror so she couldn’t see her bloodied face.
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Despite all the physical and psychological pain, it was a soothing voice that Alison never forgot and had always wanted an opportunity to thank him.
Alison, who works as a baby and children photographer and is now 52, said: “I was just driving on the road when a milk tanker pulled out of a side road right in front of me. I had nowhere to go but into him. I don’t remember anything about the actual impact, the next thing I knew I had crashed and I remember putting my hand up to my face and basically my nose wasn’t there, my face felt like jelly. So I knew it was pretty bad.
“Then this man appeared and he kept me calm. He took the mirror off so I couldn’t see what I looked like.
“He just talked to me the whole time, reassured me and kept me conscious. The thing I remember most was his voice — it was just so calming and it is something that has always remained with me.”
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Paramedics took Alison to Huddersfield Royal Infirmary but she was transferred to the specialist plastic surgery unit at Bradford Royal Infirmary for an emergency operation.
She went on to make a full recovery and even worked up the courage to try driving a car again three weeks later.
But Alison never managed to find out the man’s name until she recently put a request on social media and in local newspapers for any help to track him down.
To her amazement, she received a call out of the blue that brought all the memories back.
She said: “I picked up the phone and he said ‘hello, is that Alison’? And I immediately said ‘oh my God, it’s you’! A shiver went up my spine and I just burst into tears, his voice was just as I remembered it. It brought it all back to me from 18 years ago — but in a nice way.”
The mystery man turned out to be a hotelier called Garry Birley, who is 68, and still lives just yards away from the scene of the crash.
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Speaking to the Tele, Garry said: “The day after it had happened I wanted to get in touch with her, by giving her a card to let her know I was thinking of her.
“But she had been moved to a hospital in Bradford were she was receiving the specialist treatment to reconstruct her face. When the appeal had gone out through the local paper, I was only too happy to comply because I wanted to know how she was getting on. And it was great to hear she is getting on so well. I just did what any normal person would do in that situation really.
“I’ve been involved in a couple of car accidents in my time so I knew the first thing to do was to calm Alison down as she was in a lot of shock. I have a bit of first aid experience but she was in such a bad way that specialist services were needed. Situations like that do happen and the best thing you can do is try to calm down the people involved.”
The pair are now meeting up next month in Yorkshire for the first time.