A STUDENT nurse driving to her local A&E for her first day of work ended up there as a patient instead – after a tree fell on her car.
Collette Hinchcliffe, 30, was battling her way through Storm Franklin on the way to her very first casualty shift.
She had only been on the road for ten minutes when a huge gust of wind brought a tree down on her Renault Kangoo just after 6am today.
The vehicle was crushed and she was left covered in glass from the smashed windscreen.
She blacked out for a few moments but when she came round she was able to drag herself from the wreckage and stagger from the scene in a state of shock
Collette said: “I managed to call the police and they came really quickly.
“They checked me over and because I was confused and had head, neck and back pain they said I needed to go to hospital.
“I didn’t want to take up an ambulance so my boyfriend came to pick me up to take me.”
She arrived at the casualty department at Furness General Hospital, in Barrow, Cumbria, as a patient around the time she should have been reporting for work.
Collette said: “They were alerted that I was on the way so they were expecting me – and they were brilliant.
“It was a shock for everyone that as I was there as a patient and not a student but they are all amazing at their jobs so they checked me over in no time.
“They put a neck brace on me and took me for a CT scan to check I didn’t have any brain injuries.
“I was released after they finished all the tests and allowed to go home.
“I was feeling really sore and still a bit confused but I know I have had a very lucky escape.
“Every time there is a bad storm people tragically die when trees fall on their cars which is awful.
“You never think it is going to happen to you, of course, but I know from today that it can. I am just so grateful to have got out alive.
“I was gutted that my car has been destroyed as I only got it a month or so ago to go for days out with my partner as a treat to help with the stress of working through the pandemic.
“But I know that the most important thing is that I survived.”
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Collette, who lives with chef Luke Noble, 32, in Allithwaite, Cumbria, is in the second year of her nursing degree at the University of Cumbria.
She doesn't know when she will be well enough to go back to work.
She wants to become a mental health nurse when she graduates but added: “I now know from first hand experience what a fantastic job the nurses in A&E do.”
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