A woman who almost died in a hit-and-run six years ago is to run the Cork City Marathon with the medic who saved her life.
Olivia Keating and Dr Jason van der Velde will take to the starting line on St Patrick's Street on Sunday.
Olivia recalls she was out cycling when she hit by a car on June 2nd in 2016.
She then spent two and half weeks in a coma, before going into rehabilitation.
She told Newstalk Breakfast she suffered massive injuries.
"Unfortunately I went head-first through a road sign.
"My helmet kind of got caught in this sign, and there was a little wall in the ditch which I came down on to.
"I kind of more or less broke everything on the left side of my body".
Dr van der Velde explains coming on to the scene.
"I suppose she was an absolute heap, to be fair - she had a awful traumatic brain injury, facial injuries, long bone injuries.
"And [she] really required a neuroprotective anesthetic there in the street in order to survive.
"Our role in pre-hospital emergency medicine here in Cork is to provide critical care support - at the side of the road, in the farm - for those patients who simply will not make it to hospital."
Olivia says she underwent several surgeries in the aftermath.
"For about kind of two years I still had a couple of surgeries... quite big ones: one on my shoulder and one on my leg".
Picture by: Image Source / Alamy Stock PhotoAsked how they met up again, she says: "We both lived in the same town at the time, we would have seen each other every now and then".
Dr van der Velde also met Olivia while covering the Courtmacsherry Marathon about three years ago.
"I'm on a bit of journey, like most people, trying to get get fit and lose a bit of weight.
"Olivia was kind of joking at me - 'Oh now look, we can get you running a marathon' - I was like 'No, never'.
"I suppose it's kind of steamrolled from there... she press-ganged me into it", he jokes.
The pair will run to raise money for the West Cork Rapid Response Unit, where Dr van der Velde volunteers.
"We provide the emergency critical care in West Cork - but people won't realise as well that we support local, voluntary, emergency medical personnel... to be able to respond pre-hospital in their voluntary time, in their own free time, to people in need.
"This maraton/fundraiser is really to put some of that money back into the education, in particular, of the marathon medical team.
"Those first-aiders who give up their time day in, day out", Dr van der Velde adds.
