A FUNDRAISING former Army captain from Ellesmere Port will carry the Olympic Torch on her scooter.
Great-grandmother Evelyn Crow, 64, will carry the torch through the small village of Ingoldsmells, Lincolnshire, today (Wednesday).
A decade ago, Evelyn – who left Ellesmere Port as a teenager in 1965 to join the Army – had her life turned upside down.
She had worked as a midwife at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital, London, was a Captain in the Territorial and Army Volunteer Reserve, and was about to start a PhD.
But Evelyn was involved in a collision on her way to her mother’s funeral in Hooton. She was rushed to the Countess of Chester Hospital where she was told she had a broken neck and a ripped aorta.
A week later, her neck was fixated in Warrington Hospital and she was told she would never walk again – but eight months later, she did.
While Evelyn’s neck was being fixated, the surgeon touched her spinal cord, causing her to have cerebral palsy and she still gets about in a wheelchair or scooter.
Evelyn, who has three degrees, was forced to resign her military commission.
Since the accident, she has completed swimathons for charity.
She said: “At the moment I’m growing my hair for wigs for children with cancer.”
She was nominated to carry the torch by the physio team at Boston Hospital, Lincolnshire.
Evelyn, whose daughter Susan Cross lives in Neston, suffered an early tragedy in her life when brother Eric Terry died of kidney disease aged just 15 when she lived in Ellesmere Port.
Her nominators wrote: “Evelyn did not let this deter her but rose to the challenge of making life purposeful again.
“In doing so she has challenged and motivated everyone she has met.
“Evelyn has continued to lecture in nursing practice, inspiring the next generation of nurses, is a partner in a business supplying individually adapted vehicles to the disabled enabling them to lead a more independent lifestyle, and recently completed a sponsored swim in aid of the Marie Curie Foundation.”
