Elber Twomey to act as bereavement counsellor

Road safety and suicide awareness campaigner Elber Twomey, who lost her entire family in a horrific holiday car crash, has revealed plans to become a bereavement counsellor.

“Since I began talking about my story, people have come to me with their problems,” Elber said.

“I have listened to them but I just never felt qualified to help them. But over the course of the year, I hope to study counselling so that I can help people who have been bereaved. Maybe everything happens for a reason.”

She was speaking before outlining her hopes for 2015 on RTÉ’s Today show.

Ms Twomey, who was five months pregnant, her husband, Con, and their 16-month-old son Oisín, were returning from holidays in Devon on July 6, 2012, when her life changed forever on a road near Torquay.

Polish taxi driver Marek Wojciechowski deliberately swerved onto their side of the road and rammed head-on into their car and died.

He had left a suicide note and was being pursued by police.

Oisín died in the crash. Elber lost her unborn daughter, Elber Marie. Con suffered devastating injuries and died in Cork University Hospital 10 months later.

Elber suffered life-changing injuries and spent three weeks in a coma before undergoing a raft of operations.

She has since devoted her life to ensuring that gardaí get special training to deal with suicidal drivers.

She promotes road safety awareness and has raised thousands of euro for suicide support charities.

As part of her road safety campaign, she has met government ministers and senior gardaí which has resulted in new garda recruits undergoing specialised suicide awareness courses.

Control room operators in the Devon and Cornwall police force have also received suicide awareness training, and further suicide awareness programmes are planned across the force.

But Elber said she is now ready to take the next step in her recovery.

She hopes to undertake an introductory course in counselling in Dublin, starting next month, in the hope of embarking on a specialised counselling course later in the year.

“Maybe this is where my life has always been heading,” she said.

“I really need to try and bring some level of normality back in to my life, well — as normal as possible anyway.”

Elber was honoured with an award last year for her road safety work.