A woman who lost her forehead in a 120mph car crash has urged others not to rest their feet on the dashboard.
Grainne Kealy, 35, broke every bone in her face during the accident after an airbag inflated and pushed her knees up towards her head.
She was left ‘unrecognisable’ in the crash, which happened while a passenger in her boyfriend’s jeep.
It skidded on black ice and hit a wall in December 2016, with Grainne ‘kneeing herself in the face’ at high speed.
She suffered a leak to the brain, minor brain injury, and lost two teeth.
The most visible injury, however, was having to have her entire forehead removed for two years, then replaced with a ceramic one.
Now she is speaking out to try to prevent others going through the same thing, after seeing celebrities post photos of themselves resting their feet on the dashboard. ‘It breaks my heart that not nearly enough people know how dangerous it is,’ Grainne posted on Facebook.
‘It breaks my heart that I can’t reach enough people to warn them before another person has to go through what I had to go through. ‘Trust me when I say it is not worth it.’
Speaking out on social media, Grainne said: ‘My recovery has been very tough and because of the complications in May 2007 I am still recovering.
‘It has been a long long road. I have no memory of the accident, the three months leading up to it or the month following it.
‘One of my first memories is looking in the mirror for the first time. I didn’t recognize the face looking back at me.’ They had been travelling from their home in Galway to Grainne’s hometown of Laois in Ireland when the accident happened in Borris-in-Ossary.
Speaking out in 2017, Grainne said: ‘I do find it tough some days when I constantly lose words while in the middle of a conversation. This can happen to me twenty times a day. I get headaches when too many people are talking around/to me, when someone tries to talk to me over music and I sometimes find it difficult to stay focused.
‘I still dislike looking in a mirror and I do not like my face but I can deal with it much better now.’ She urged people: ‘Please listen to me and learn from my horrible experience.’
