A NEWBURY nurse has been seriously injured in a horrific car crash in Malawi.
Teresa Connolly, aged 34, was a front seat passenger when the car she was travelling in overturned in torrential rain in the south east African country last Thursday (November 5).
In December last year the Newbury Weekly News reported how Miss Connolly, a former St Joseph’s Primary School and St Bartholomew’s School pupil, sold all her belongings and flew to Africa to help train fellow nurses.
The accident happened as she was travelling with four colleagues from Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) from the Mzuzu Central Hospital in Malawi, where she was working as an intensive care nursing expert.
Doctors initially feared that Miss Connolly had sustained spinal damage and due to a lack of local health facilities, she was airlifted to a hospital in Nairobi, Kenya.
Tests later ruled this out but Miss Connolly remains in hospital in the Kenyan capital, where she is currently undergoing tests and MRI scans.
A colleague in the same vehicle was also injured.
Her parents, Francis and Joan, of Bartlemy Road, first received a call about the incident from VSO officials on Friday (November 6) and were due to fly out to the African country on Wednesday night after receiving clearance to travel.
Mr Connolly said: “When we first received the call we initially feared the worst, but thank God it does not seem as bad as we first feared - it is a great relief.
“She is very badly cut and bruised but she is in great heart.”
Miss Connolly, who studied nursing at Manchester University, moved out to Malawi in September 2008 and is currently on a two-year placement funded by development charity VSO, which could be extended.
During her placement, she has helped to teach nurses at the Nkhoma Hospital in the south of the country, which serves about 300,000 people and helped prevent the spread of the infectious disease, cholera, in the Malawian capital, Lilongwe.
Mr Connolly said: “She has been thoroughly enjoying it and is pleased to be making a contribution.”
He added that Miss Connolly is now expected to remain in hospital for between a week and 10 days and that her family and friends had all been praying for her this week.
In addition, he said that Miss Connolly was due to be flying home for the first time at Christmas to see her family, including her brother, two sisters and two nieces who were born prematurely in April and who she has not yet seen.
Mr Connolly said that he still hoped that she would be able to make the trip.