Hannah Leonard (22), a former Loreto Bray student, had been training for the Dublin Marathon and went out for a run while abroad on the island of Sicily. After only several kilometres, she was struck by a car while crossing at a pedestrian crossing and remains in intensive care.
This morning, her father, Kevin Leonard, said the family are keen to get her home, where she can be in familiar surroundings with family and friends around her, and explained “these are all big parts of the recovery process”.
Speaking to Claire Byrne on RTÉ Radio One, he said they were “still in a state of shock with it all” and “trying to come to terms with everything”
Elaborating on how the accident occurred, Kevin said Hannah had been working at a resort in Sicily since May with her boyfriend and was training for the October marathon, with an evening run part of her schedule after she got home from work.
On the evening she was struck by a car, just weeks out from the race, she was going out for her last long run, which was meant to be 35 kilometres and had actually changed her route for the first time.
“She was essentially crossing a dual carriageway with a verge in the middle of it,” Kevin said. “And she got across the first two lanes on the pedestrian crossing, then got across the third lane. And it was just as she got to cross the last lane that she got hit by a car.”
Kevin added that what followed in the hospital was “one-shot surgery”.
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“If it didn’t work, she wasn’t going to make it. So thankfully, obviously, the surgery worked and she got through it. But she was in an induced coma for the first week,” he added.
While the hospital staff in Sicily have been “fantastic”, Kevin said “at some point, we would obviously like to move her home. But at the moment, she’s just not in a state to move”.
“So we’re just waiting to see when the next surgery is, because every day changes depending on her condition. So every time we think we have a plan, the plan changes because her condition changes or something happens.
“The big thing with her now is, it’s up to her to fight. It’s up to her to recuperate and recover. And hopefully she recuperates and recovers. They’ve had a couple of surgeries that they need to do. And once she’s through that, it’s down to Hannah. It’s just a waiting game.”
The other issue facing the family, should Hannah be deemed fit to travel, is the financial one, as the family were not aware if Hannah had medical insurance to cover the costs. So the fundraising campaign, which currently stands at just under €150,000, could prove crucial.
“That’s another logistic piece because we don’t know if Hannah had travel insurance and we don’t have access to her phone or her laptop because we don’t know her password,” Kevin said. “So we have to work off the fact that she doesn’t have travel insurance, which means we have to organise all that stuff ourselves.
“We’ve made contact with a team in Beaumont [Hospital, in Dublin], who are willing to take her. We have to go and source an air ambulance ourselves.
“We need to raise funds for the air ambulance and we don’t have any idea how much anything is going to cost. So in the short term, we need to get her home and an air ambulance isn’t cheap as we’ve been seeing. But then we need to get physios and occupational therapists and it’s going to be very expensive and we have no idea of what those costs are going to be at the moment.”
The family, from the outset, have maintained that as each day passes, they will greet any positive progress, no matter how small, as an encouraging sign and they are still very much holding on to that belief.
Kevin said “every day, we see something”, and remarked how “last night, for example, when we were in with her and talking around her and talking to her and playing her messages that her friends have sent, her mouth was moving a little bit and her body was moving a little bit.
“So we’re sort of hopeful that that is her responding to us. But the doctors can’t say for definite that that’s definitely her responding to us. Every day we see something a little bit different. Last week, one of the days we were in, she was yawning when we were in with her.
“We were sort of taking that as a positive because the first week there was no response at all. So every day we’re sort of taking the little positives that we’re seeing and hoping that they’re signs that she’s on her way back to us.”
While Hannah was due to run the Dublin Marathon in honour of her late grandmother and raise funds for Purple House Cancer Support in Bray who had supported her, the marathon organisers were able to offer some consolation by keeping her race number and t-shirt, which Kevin said was another positive for the family.
Meanwhile, the staff and students at Hannah’s former school, Loreto Bray, have said their thoughts and prayers are with Hannah and the family at this difficult time and remarked on how she is so well regarded by the school community.
Principal Dee Ryan said: “Hannah is an exceptional member of our school community. During her time as a student, she was a wonderful student leader and fully embraced all of the facets of school life.
“Since she completed her secondary education, we remain so proud of her, and she has returned to us many times to help with fundraisers and our Christmas market in aid of local charities, still embodying the best of Loreto Bray.
“The whole school community were saddened to hear about Hannah’s accident in Italy, and our thoughts are with Hannah and her family at this difficult time.
“We send them strength and resilience on this journey, and we will keep them in our prayers. Hannah has always displayed a can-do attitude and exuded positivity, which will be so important during this recovery process. We are united in hoping for a speedy recovery for Hannah, and in sending her family fortitude during the tough weeks and months ahead.”
To donate to Hannah’s fundraiser visit gofund.me/82439e34
