My name is Gillian Carrigill, I will be 56 years old on my next birthday, my two friends Suzy & Hazel are slightly younger than me, none of us are accomplished cyclists in fact Hazel hasn't ridden a bike for 25 years, but we are all up for a challenge to raise money for a very worth charity THE BACK UP TRUST

My two friends and I are in training to do the C2C bike ride, it's 170 miles from Morcombe to Bridlington, intending to do this in 4 to 5 days depending on how training goes sometime in June, watch this space!

Two and a half years ago my daughter Sophie was visiting her aunt/uncle and cousins in Cincinnati she was 16 years old, looking forward to 3 weeks of life in Indian Hill a beautiful sleepy suburb, her plans were to GET A TAN, shop at the mall visit Kings island theme park, go cheer on the Cincinnati Reds, and just hang out with her cousins, she had been the year before and had a fantastic time, she had saved and looked forward to her next visit with such exitment.

These plans came to an abrupt end three days after her arrival when on August 4th 5.20 pm Sophie was involved in a car crash.

It was 1am in the morning, I was up doing some work on the computer and watching a film about American teenagers, thinking about Sophie and what she may be doing, I hadn't called her that day, but had spoken very briefly to her the day before, too busy enjoying herself to be bothered talking to me!

The phone rang but by the time I got there it had stopped ringing, I rang 1571 there was a message from Fiona Sophie’s aunt saying we must call her urgently, my first thoughts were that Sophie had done something wrong, but why would I think that? she'd never been in trouble before, a sensible sporty girl, a split second later the other thought took over, I turned cold and couldn't pick up the phone, I went upstairs to wake up my husband but while he was getting up the phone rang again, I answered, and at that moment all our lives changed forever.

Sophie was already in the operating theatre with a team of trauma surgeons fighting to keep her alive, she was unresponsive with a very faint pulse and bleeding internally, they were doing everything they could for her.

It's impossible to reiterate how we felt, coped and got through the hours that night and the following day as we made our long painful journey to UC hospital in Cincinnati, we were drip fed information from the surgeons, and every phone call brought more bad news.

We arrived in Newark to face a 4 hour delay for our connection to Cincinnati, Sophie was undergoing further surgery at this time to remove the head of the pancreas, duodenum, spleen, bile duct collectively called a Whipple procedure normally given to older patients with Pancreatic Cancer, no one had survived this procedure performed in a trauma situation in the last seven years at that hospital, which happened to be one of the top ten trauma centres in the United Sates. the longest most frightening four hours ever endured, just before we boarded our delayed flight we received a call to say that Sophie had come through the op and was for the time being stabilised, they had done all they could possibly do, it was up to her now.

We arrived at Cincinnati and met by Fiona and Martin ,her husband their eyes red and bulging, Fiona had more bad news for us, Sophie had also suffered a broken back and a spinal cord injury and could possibly be paralysed from the waist down, unfortunately this turned out to be the case.

That was 2 ½ years ago And Sophie has been on an amazing Journey since then. We have so many people to thank for Sophie’s rocky road to recovery

Sophie is now part of the Paralympic inspiration program and trains with Great Britain coaches once a week; she is hoping to be part of the team going to Rio in four years’ time! She is very positive and just gets on with her life, always a smile on her face and a happy go lucky outlook; needless to say our whole family is immensely proud of her.

We have so many people and organisations to thank for Sophie’s rehab and recovery but one stands out for me and the people who know Sophie:

The Backup trust has been pivotal in Sophie’s recovery both physically and mentally, Sophie took part in an outward bounds week in the lake district, where she abseiled canoed, mountain biked down the side of a mountain and many other activities, she came back on a high and continued to climb, Back up helps people get their confidence back and shows them that life doesn’t stop and can still be fulfilled even when your injured.

Sophie is now a leader with Back Up and hopes to be able to give newly injured people the same positivity, care and sense of achievement and of course fun! As she was given in those early unsure days.