Plane crash survivor takes steps towards recovery

A HOSPITALISED survivor of the Cork air crash has taken a major step on the long road to recovery after walking for the first time since the tragedy.

Heather Elliott, 53, has been confined to her bed in Cork University Hospital since the disaster a week ago in which six people were killed, where she is recovering from a fractured pelvis, broken ribs and an operation to remove her gall bladder.

But the Kinsale-born mother- of-three received a major boost on Tuesday when she regained enough strength to take a short walk in the hospital ward.

Her mother Roma, 84, said: “She’s getting on well and is getting better each day. On Tuesday she was able to walk in the ward for the fist time and that was a major step and really lifted her spirits.

“She’s also been able to sleep now. She hadn’t been able to sleep since she went in to hospital after everything she had been through.

“She was fully conscious throughout the flight and remembers everything, but she was obviously very shaken by her experience. So she had asked the doctors to give her sleeping pills, but they couldn’t do that for a few days because she was on morphine. But a couple of days ago she was able to take the pills and was finally able to get a proper rest.”

She added: “Heather hasn’t really spoken much about the accident and she has asked us not to bring it up in conversation with her. So we talk about lighter topics when we see her to try and keep her spirits up.”

Heather’s brother David said yesterday: “She’s a very strong woman and she’s doing very well, but she could be another week in hospital.”

The Belfast-based computer science lecturer, one of six survivors of the crash, caught the Flight NM7100 to visit her mother for the weekend in Kinsale.

After being carried from the rubble, she searched frantically for her mobile phone to let her mother know she had survived. But she never found her phone.

David added: “The only thing on her mind after the crash was to find her phone to make a call. But she never got to do it.

“That period between hearing about the crash until we found out Heather had survived was horrific.”