The column below appears in this week's INM Irish regional newspapers.
Michael Commane
It was a beautiful summer’s day in August 2012 that I drove my motorbike from Dublin to Newmarket in Co. Cork. I had bought the Honda in Newmarket and continue to have it serviced there.
Just before leaving, after the service, chatting with Tim, the shop owner, talking about the lovely day, the need to be careful on the road, he told me about neighbours of his who had been involved in a terrible road accident in England. And I can still recall his saying that they were such a lovely family.
It all came back to me last Monday week. I was listening to the Sean O’Rourke Show on RTE Radio. Sean was interviewing a woman who had been involved in an horrific road accident in Devon in England in July 2012.
In the accident she lost her husband, 16-month old son and her unborn baby daughter. I found myself stuck to my chair listening to one of the most remarkable people I have ever heard talk on radio.
A few minutes into the interview I realised it was the woman from near Newmarket whom Tim had spoken to me about back on that beautiful summer’s day in 2012.
Elber Twomey, and it took me a while to get the first name as I’d never heard it before, spoke about her ordeal. She has had something like 18 operations, has a lot of metal in her body but she is back driving her car and is not on any pain killers.
The driver of the vehicle who hit their car, Marek Wojciechowski, was suffering from suicidal ideation. At the time of the accident the police were in pursuit, with siren activated and blue lights flashing.
Marek deliberately swerved to the other side of the dual carriageway and hit head on the Twomey car. Marek had left a suicide note at home following the break up with his wife. He too was killed in the collision.
Elber, who is a teacher by trade, was on the Sean O’Rourke programme as she is now campaigning that police be given special training in how to deal with drivers with suicidal ideation.
Police in Britain have since changed their operating procedures for dealing with the pursuit of suicidal drivers and here two joint Oireachtas committees have backed Ms Twomey’s campaign to secure special training for gardaí to deal with suicide.
In the course of the radio interview she spoke about the support she receives from her family and friends. She also explained her original feelings for Marek and how she had come to forgive him for what he had done. But it was the way she told it that was so striking. It was all told with such gentleness and understatement.
She explained that while in hospital a priest had said to her that he would pray for Marek on her behalf. At the time she had no intentions of doing anything of the sort. Indeed, she said to him: “I hope you live to be very old”, meaning she had no intentions of praying for Marek. But some months later she lit a candle for Marek in the chapel at Cork University Hospital.
She explained how by forgiving him, all sense of bitterness left her.
It was the way she told her story that was sensational. I was back thinking of the day Tim told me about the accident and the family.
Elber Twomey is the genuine article. She told her story exactly as it is. And through the medium of radio I have had the great fortune to hear her story.
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