35-year-old Grainne Kealy broke every bone in her face as a result of sitting with her feet on the dashboard, when her boyfriend’s car collided with a wall.
She's now trying to raise awareness of car safety, warning people not to do what she did.
Kealy was 22 at the time of the accident, and was driving happily with her legs up on the dashboard. Suddenly, her boyfriends Jeep hit a patch of black ice and skidded off the road, colliding with a wall at 120 miles per hour (193kph).
She says she didn't usually sit that way though, “I had decided along the way that I would be more comfortable if my feet were on the dashboard. It was something I rarely did and only did that morning as I had bought a new pair of Ugg boots and knew that I wouldn’t dirty the dashboard.”
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Because her feet were resting on the dashboard, they were forced backwards by the power of the inflating airbag. As a result, she broke every bone in her face. Doctors also found that Kealy had a cerebrospinal fluid leak from her brain, which required immediate treatment by a neurosurgeon at Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital.
The damage would not have been so severe if she was seated in the car correctly.
Kealy spoke out recently, about her memories from the accident. “They told me that I had pushed in and up my face and they would have to basically pull it all out and put it back together.”
Doctors had to remove her forehead, and she was left with nothing in place until a ceramic forehead was fitted in 2009.
She says she still suffers from consequences of the accident, “I constantly lose words while in the middle of a conversation. This can happen to me twenty times a day. I get headaches when too many people are talking around and I sometimes find it difficult to stay focused.”
She is now putting her focus into warning people of the dangers of resting your feet on the dashboard, including sharing pictures of celebrities who are putting their lives in danger from the act.
“It breaks my heart that I can’t reach enough people to warn them before another person has to go through what I had to go through.”
“Please help make more people aware of the dangers of having your feet on the dashboard. Trust me when I say it is not worth it. I am STILL recovering from my accident TEN YEARS later.”
