Emily Burdett would give just about anything to forget the night of Thursday, May 21.
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A night on which she did nothing wrong, but a night for which she is still paying a heavy price.
The night a simple shopping trip from Echuca to Shepparton would end up with her and her family being in the proverbial wrong place at the wrong time.
Their car and a vehicle travelling in the opposite direction along the Peter Ross-Edwards Causeway collided between Shepparton and Mooroopna.
The events of which are still raw, still being relived and still making Emily scared to drive.
Emily, partner Brenden Foy and five-year-old daughter Quinn Burdett had nowhere to hide around 6.40 pm when, for reasons still unknown, a vehicle on the causeway struck a traffic light pole.
The badly damaged car then ricocheted on to the wrong side of the road — straight at Emily’s silver Ford Mondeo.
“I was just concentrating; it was so dark along there and then it just happened all of a sudden. It happened so quickly — all I could think about was putting my foot on the brake and stopping as the car came towards us,” Emily said.
“That was the scariest part, knowing you can’t do anything but brace for the impact.”
Airbags deployed on collision and, just as suddenly, Emily realised she had petrol and coolant running down her leg.
Describing the incident as something you would see in a movie, Emily yelled at her family to get out of the car.
She said she was going into shock, but knows if she hadn’t braked it could have been a lot worse.
What still sticks with her today, almost certainly tomorrow and probably for some time to come, is the sound of metal on metal, crushing on impact.
“That sound of crushing metal is very confronting — something I doubt I will ever forget,” Emily said.
“Despite this, we are so thankful we survived. It is something that will stay with us all for ever.”
She said the driver of the other vehicle had been in her family's thoughts.
The 33-year-old Shepparton man driving the other vehicle was airlifted to the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne with life-threatening injuries.
Thankfully he has since been discharged.
Emily, Brenden and Quinn were taken to Goulburn Valley Health where Emily had a full CT scan and extensive blood tests, spending the next two days there.
Brenden and Quinn were only kept overnight but Quinn has ongoing neck, back and shoulder pain.
Still processing the full extent of the trauma, Emily has nothing but praise for the first responders — the police, firies and ambulance teams — and the staff at GV Health.
Some motorists also stopped to help.
Emily described them all as “amazing”.
“The staff at GV Health were awesome; when I arrived in emergency trauma, everyone was waiting and reassured me and told me not to be worried about anything,” she said.
“I was so nervous and scared, but they talked me through everything and kept me updated on Brenden and Quinn’s conditions — everyone at the hospital took great care of us, the nurses were fantastic and the doctors explained everything.”
But now they are home, the accident more than two weeks in the past, and Emily and her family cannot help but feel they have been somewhat forgotten.
And it started almost immediately.
While many people often avoid getting back behind the wheel after a serious collision, the family needed to get home to Echuca after being discharged and had to travel back along the causeway just a few days after the accident.
“We both had anxiety about driving back over the causeway but they (emergency services) had cleaned it up very well — the road was a mess after the accident,” Emily said.
“It wasn’t so bad though because there wasn’t any glass anywhere, which made it a little bit easier.”
But she and Brenden agreed the stress of getting behind the wheel was still real, almost palpable.
“Driving is now very nerve-wracking ... we’re both picking up on other people’s driving a lot more — especially when they’re not doing the right thing,” Emily said.
“If they get too close to our car we both freak out a little bit ... we watch people now and they think they can take risks and everything is going to be fine.
“But you just get nervous because you don’t know what they’re thinking.”
Compounding their pain is the spectre of financial strain — it is severe and something they never considered.
Emily and Brenden were given a hire car for two weeks after the collision; however, they are concerned about the cost of repaying the loan owed on the Ford Mondeo and the cost of buying a replacement car.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help the young family raise money to cover the cost of the incident.
“We are still alive — how lucky are we? I wish I could say the same for the other driver with his injuries, I wish he was in the same position as us,” Emily said.
“Yes we were frightened, annoyed, upset and stressed, but he was in a critical condition — we hope his outcome is a positive one.
“I think we’ve been given a second chance at life and we had better take this one and not waste it.”
To help Emily and her family go to gofundme.com/help-our-family-after-horrific-car-accident