ONE year ago Carol Manley was left fighting for her life after a bucket-shaped block of concrete was thrown through her car windscreen from a bridge over the A12.
The 58-year broke her nose, fractured her eye sockets, cracked every rib and needed five titanium plates inserted into her face to mend her broken cheekbones after the incident which the police are treating as attempted murder.
Twelve months on and the mother-of-four is still suffering from the attack – unable to sleep, frightened to get into a car and in need of weekly hospital visits – while the culprits are still at large.
"It's changed her attitude, her outlook and she's nervous the whole time in the car," said husband Steve, who was driving the couple's Nissan at the time of the incident.
"Just the other day a leaf blew up and hit the windscreen and she nearly jumped onto the back seat."
The couple had been driving home to Harold Hill, near Romford, after visiting friends in Great Baddow when a 25-kilogram concrete block was thrown from the West Hanningfield Road bridge, near Howe Green, at around 10pm.
They were travelling at 45mph when the missile smashed through their windscreen and struck Carol in the face and chest.
Speaking to the Chronicle this week, she said she still bears the psychological and physical scars from the attack.
"I used to always laugh and joke but now I'm serious, especially in the car," the grandmother-of-11 said.
"I used to be able to sleep in the car but I don't now. I always look around and I'm very nervous."
She sees a counsellor once a fortnight and is unable to feel the area under her left eye, her upper lip and her palette.
Her left eye regularly swells up, which she says makes her look like she has been punched, and she still needs two more years of hospital treatment to rebuild her teeth, which were all destroyed.
She can't even eat an apple and has not taken a holiday this year because she is regularly required to attend appointments at Broomfield Hospital and the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel.
Steve, her husband of 38 years, said: "She wakes up throughout the night – she hardly sleeps."
The image Carol wakes up to is the sight of her ashen-faced friend standing at the side of the A12, staring at her bruised and bloodied face.
"All I remember is my friend Warren standing on the roadside wearing a leather jacket with this horrible scared look on his face.
"Every time I go to sleep that's what I see," said Carol.
Warren, who they had just visited, raced to the scene after a phone call from Steve.
"We've made a point of getting her in the car because we're not going to let some mindless oik get the better of her," added Steve, a 57-year-old lorry driver.
"If she was to say she's not getting in the car, not only have they damaged her physically, they've ruined her life mentally as well."
Steve, who suffered just a cut head, said his family's lives have been turned upside down.
His daughter Sarah, 31, quit her job in property rental in Greece to help nurse her mother.
"Physically, I had a little scratch but nerves-wise we're all shot because of what happened to Carol," said Steve.
"Personally, I go through similar things – I don't sleep very well. I can't let it beat me because I drive for a living."
No one has been arrested for the attack, which happened 30 minutes after another missile was thrown from the Fryerning Lane bridge, near Ingatestone, eight miles down the road.
Lisa Horne, 26, and her mother Stella, 48, from Writtle, were left badly shaken after a concrete block slammed into her bonnet and shattered the windscreen.
"It would be nice if they caught them," said Carol. "I don't see how they could see my injuries and live with themselves. Or if they've told someone, how can they keep silent? Because I could have died from this.
"The people who did this to me are evil. What more can you say? There's no word to describe them but evil."
She wanted to thank the Chronicle's readers for their support and says she was inundated with messages of goodwill – one, from Chelmsford, was simply addressed: "Lady who was involved in the A12 incident."
