- .Candace Emptage was in a car when she crashed into an ambulance
- .She was rescued by firefighters in Gateshead and was in coma for 6 weeks
- .When she woke she thought it was still the 1990s and Spice Girls were no1
- .But it was actually 2010 and she had lost more than a decade of memories
- .Ms Emptage, of County Durham, thought she was still 22 but was in fact 40
- .Former model did not recognise her daughter Maddie, who was then 14
- .Ms Emptage only remembers life at 22 and has no memories of growing up
- .She didn't recall her boyfriend and had to learn to walk again in hospital
A mother who woke up from a coma had lost more than a decade of her memory and thought it was still the 1990s.
Candace Emptage had been in a coma for six weeks following a car accident, when she woke up believing she was a 22-year-old woman.
In fact she was 40 and was told she was mother to Maddie, then 14.
'They told me I had a daughter and I just stared at them and said, "what?"' Ms Emptage explained.
Candace Emptage woke up from a six week coma and thought it was the 1990s, she was 22 and the Spice Girls were number one. In fact it was 2010, she was 40 and mother to Maddie (right), who she didn't recognise
The former model was convinced it was still the 1990s - the decade when the Spice Girls were top of the charts with Wannabe and BSE was the latest health crisis to hit Britain. She said it was incredibly hard dealing with the fact she only had a fleeting image of her daughter at two and could remember nothing of her growing up, let alone recognise the girl standing before her in hospital.
Ms Emptage, a former model, lost control of her Toyota MR2 and crashed into the path of an ambulance near Rowlands Gill, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear in September 2010. This was not far from her home in County Durham.
She was rescued by firefighters who spent an hour cutting her free from the wreckage and saved her life.
While she was in the coma her family discussed turning off her life support at Newcastle General Hospital, but, at the last minute, she was able to move a finger, signalling for them to give her more time.
After she woke up Ms Emptage had difficulty adjusting to her memory loss.
'Shock doesn't even come close to what I felt,' she said.
'They told me I had a daughter and I just stared at them and said, "what?'' Eventually one image of Maddie, who was 14 at the time, came back to me, but she was a tiny little girl of about two.
'When she came to the hospital I had no idea who she was, I just couldn't believe I had a teenage daughter.
Ms Emptage woke up from the six week coma thinking she was still 22 (left) but discovered she was 40
Ms Emptage is pictured with her daughter Maddie but failed to recognise the then 14-year-old in 2010
Ms Emptage is building her relationship with Maddie despite being unable to remember her growing up
The former model's family considered turning off her life support in hospital but she then started to move
'I still have no memories of her before the crash, and it has been hard.'
Ms Emptage, of Burnopfield, County Durham had also completely forgotten she had a boyfriend of six years who had come to see her every day while she'd been in hospital. The pair split up shortly after the accident.
She added 'I thought I was about 22, I still cannot remember my childhood, going to school or my oldest friends.'
Ms Emptage has now met the firefighters at Swalwell Community Fire Station, Gateshead, who spent over an hour cutting her free from the wreckage of her car, and saving her life four years ago.
Ms Emptage thought she was still a 22-year-old woman when she woke up and forgot a decade of memories
It took firefighters more than an hour to cut the former model free from the wreckage of her car after the crash
Ms Emptage has made a full physical recovery and is driving again, but can only remember life at 22
When she walked into the station she recognised three members of the crew, only to be told that they were the people who rescued her.
She said: 'This whole time I believed I had been alone that night without any real human contact but it all came flooding back to me when I saw their faces.'
Ms Emptage said it had been a huge comfort to learn she had not been alone after the crash.
She said: 'I wanted to meet the firefighters who came to my rescue that night. I wanted to say a huge thank you, I owe them my life.'
BACK TO THE 1990s: SPICE GIRLS, MAD COW DISEASE AND EURO DEFEAT
The 1990s was the decade that saw the Spice Girls explode into the charts, achieving their first number one with Wannabe in 1996. This was also the year that Prince Charles and Princess Diana got divorced, with Princess Diana losing the HRH title.
Mad cow disease was the big health issue during the decade after a link between BSE (in cattle) and the similar condition in humans (CJD) was discovered.
Sport was also dismal for England, as in Euro 1996 England lost to Germany in the semi-finals on penalties.
This was the decade when the Hubble Telescope was launched, which is still orbiting the earth.
By 2010 music was changing. The XFactor had been running for six years and was dominating the charts, winner Matt Cardle at number one with Collide for three weeks. Justin Bieber had also risen to popularity, releasing his first album.
The big health issue of 2009, swine flu, which had caused widespread panic across the UK, was also coming to an end by 2010.
England again suffered defeat at the hands of the German football team, knocked out in the final 16 of the 2010 World Cup.
Events across the world attracted attention in 2010. In Haiti a magnitude seven earthquake hit, devastating the country and killing more than 250,000 people. Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland also began erupting, disrupting dozens of flights for about a week, and forcing many European countries to close their airspace.
The Spice Girls were popular in the 1990s, while in 2010 the ash cloud in Iceland disrupted dozens of flights
Watch manager Mark Westgarth, the Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service officer in charge at the incident, said: 'We vividly remember this crash.
'As we removed the roof of the car to gain access to Candace, crew members sat inside and talked to her throughout the rescue.
'She was losing a lot of blood and her lower leg was trapped by the buckled metal caused by the impact to the front end of the car.'
Ms Emptage has undergone months of intensive physiotherapy and speech therapy and still has no feeling down the right hand side of her body, but has now began driving again. She says she has a good relationship with her daughter, despite still being unable to remember her growing up.
No comments:
Post a Comment