ONE year ago Jackie Stretton was lying in hospital in a drug-induced coma with a broken back after her car was hit in a 100mph police chase.
Today she is training, competing and winning professional athletics races across the country.
Jackie was confined to a body brace for three months after Jason Young, 21, of Axminster, Devon, and Tyrell O'Donnell, 20, of Torquay, caused a four-car pile-up on the A414 in Danbury in April 2012 in a Fiat Stilo stolen from Suffolk.
Jackie, a former St John Payne pupil, was driving from her home in Maldon to Chelmsford when her Toyota Aygo was hit by a blue VW Beetle before she crashed head-on with the police car.
With a broken back, broken leg and bleeding on the brain, she said she cried every day.
But now the 26-year-old is fighting fit after a miraculous recovery and is back competing in triathlons and adventure races where competitors run, cycle, climb or kayak their way through gruelling countryside courses with only their orienteering skills to guide them.
Jackie told the Chronicle: "I can't believe it has been a year – I spent six months lying on a sofa and six months trying to live the life I missed out on, I suppose.
"I have been pretty much working, training at the gym and racing.
"I was determined to compete in my first race before I turned 26-years-old on October 23 last year, and I did it on October 21 – and I won it!
"It was a Tri-Adventure which is two hours of running, cycling and orienteering in Surrey – so not an easy one."
Jackie, who couldn't even feed herself or stand up for longer than a minute last year, has even begun competing in trail racing, which her doctors advised her not to do because of her injuries.
But Jackie said: "As soon as someone tells me I can't do anything' I am determined that I will do it.
"I have done three trail races, and I've won two and came third in the last one.
"I am at the gym five days a week, I love it, I just have to keep training."
Jackie said she began training as soon as her back brace came off last year.
But despite her recent racing successes, she admitted her body is still recovering from the accident.
She said: "I am not fixed yet. I still see my physiotherapist, I get a lot of pain in my back and I am still sore all the time.
"There is still a visible difference in muscle between my legs and you can still see the big scar on my knee.
"I still have big lumps where my bones broke and the tissue has not settled back quite where it should have which I am quite self-conscious about.
"I will always be in some degree of pain for the rest of my life, but I am not going to let that stop me."
Jackie heard the news in January that Jason Young and the driver Tyrell O'Donnell had been released half way through their 16 and 18-month sentences, to which she sighed: "That's the criminal justice system for you.
"They have got over it, but I want to show them that what they did could not destroy my life.
"It was really upsetting to see that they were both released, but fingers crossed they have both learned their lesson and they won't hurt anyone else.
"I wouldn't wish what happened to me on my worst enemy."
Jackie, who works at Sainsbury's head office in Chancery Lane, London, is finally fulfilling another lifetime ambition – to move into her own flat, which is near Chelmsford train station.
She said: "I am very excited. That's the thing when you get a near-death experience, you suddenly realise the things you want in life, things you wouldn't have done otherwise.
"I really am a grown up now."
But her move from Maldon to Chelmsford also means she will have to be leaving her 'second home', Harpers Fitness gym at the Blackwater Leisure Centre.
"I am so upset to be leaving my gym – I know everyone there – I am actually so emotional about it," she said.
"I think they are going to be missing a very vital piece of equipment when I leave.
"I probably will go to Nuffield Health, in Chelmsford, but I have checked out all the gyms around me in Chelmsford and taken classes – it is quite comic that these are the things that matter to me."
