Zoe Holohan

I could not describe how immensely kind and gentle and loving the surgeon and all the nurses and doctors were.

I mean, they cared for me astonishingly beautifully well.

They were just gorgeous people.

I went, bugger that.

They don't know who they're dealing with.

I will walk again.

Even though, like, I couldn't even move my entire body.

I was bandaged literally from head to toe.

But I remember distinctly thinking, no, I will.

That's not going to happen to me.

I started to go into a phase of denial where I thought, if I'd been rescued, then surely Brian must be rescued too.

And my prime worry was that he wouldn't recognize me because I was that badly disfigured.

That's what I kept telling anybody who'd be there, listen, would you let them know my name is Zoe just in case somebody's wandering around the hospital looking for me.

Life can be astonishingly cruel sometimes.

It was the day I managed to take my first steps.

And it was a big day.

It was a moment where I kind of felt that maybe, yes, maybe I will walk again.

But that evening turned into something even more tragic because my father suddenly passed away.

So three weeks after Brian died, my dad died of a heart attack.

And I think he died of a broken heart, to be honest with you, because he had been ill and, you know, so he couldn't travel over, but they'd been told on numerous occasions, they didn't know if I'd make it through.