'I said goodbye after being hit by a tractor - I didn't expect to live'

When Lucie Maguire was hit by a tractor as she tried to help her mother out of their broken-down car on a country lane, she was so convinced she would die that she said goodbye to her family before an ambulance had even arrived.

Four years later, the 23-year-old has spoken about her long road to recovery from injuries which doctors likened to those seen caused by bomb blasts in war zones.

It was on a dark evening in January 2021 that Lucie's mother Sue had picked her up from her job at a nursery and was driving them both back home to the pub her parents ran in Kirkby Malzeard, near Ripon in North Yorkshire.

When their car began filling with black smoke, the pair rushed to escape, and Lucie, then 19, got out and went to the driver's side to help Sue.

She says she saw headlights coming towards her before she was struck by a tractor and was dragged beneath its 10-tonne trailer.

She remained conscious throughout the ordeal and - not expecting to survive - she was able to tell her family she loved them.

"I'd got stuck with the back wheel of the tractor and was going round with it until it kind of spat me out further down the road," she explains.

It would be another month before Lucie awoke from the induced coma she was placed in at Leeds General Infirmary.

The teenager had severe internal bleeding, a broken back and pelvis, and eventually her leg was amputated.

She was not expected to be able to walk or sit up again.

"I was in hospital for 518 days. It becomes monotonous and tiring, and you kind of lose every bit of hope that you are ever going to get out," Lucie says.

She did not leave hospital until June 2022 and initially lived on the ground floor of her parents' Queen's Head pub before moving into a specially adapted bungalow nearby, using a power-assisted wheelchair with the support of her parents and three sisters.

Lucie credits her mental resilience to the support of Day One Trauma, a charity which provides emotional and practical help to victims of serious accidents like hers.

"You can fix broken bones, you can transplant organs, you can do all these things," she says.

"But if the brain gives up, I think the body gives up - and for me, without the lifeline that Day One provides, I don't think I would have had the fight in me to carry on."

It was Day One which helped Lucie understand the disability benefits she was entitled to, and the process that saw mum Sue become her full-time carer.

The charity was founded in Leeds in 2014 by Professor Peter Giannoudis, an orthopaedic surgeon who recognised significant gaps in the care and guidance people were given to move forward after suffering major trauma.

The charity also offers support for the future for people who are unsure whether they will ever be able to return to work.

Marianne Wadsworth, a case worker for Day One, says the charity helps with things like emergency funding to make sure family members can be with their loved ones, especially for trauma patients whose families do not live near the hospital.

"We can access money for accommodation, for travel and food, whatever they need to be at their bedside," Marianne says.

Lucie says that thanks to the charity's help, her goal now is to use her story to inspire others.

She says she wants to give people who find themselves in a similar position to herself a glimpse of what life can be like after a catastrophic event.

"I was given that support and, now, being able to give someone else that support means the world to me," she says.

Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.