Disabled Hove campaigner nominated for Cosmopolitan award
Sophie Morgan was 18 when she was paralysed in a car crash. Her response could earn her a national award. Frank le Duc reports
When Sophie Morgan was 18 years old, she crashed her car. The accident left her paralysed from the chest down. But she shows no signs of bitterness or regret. Instead she has become a tireless campaigner to improve driver education and to change the way people treat those who are disabled. Her efforts have led to Cosmopolitan shortlisting her for the magazine’s Ultimate Women of the Year Awards. Next week she will learn whether she has won.
Miss Morgan, 27, from Hove, had been celebrating her A-Level results when she lost control of her car while driving four friends home. She was sober. She said: “I woke up a week later in intensive care. I’d fractured my skull, broken my jaw, crushed my nose, snapped my collarbone and, most terrifying of all, damaged my spinal cord. I was paralysed from the chest down and would never walk again. Even though I was devastated, it was a blessing my friends weren’t injured.”
She had been about to go to university but her world had changed irrevocably. She vowed to seize every opportunity. A year after the crash, she took part in BBC documentary Beyond Boundaries, which followed an expedition of 11 disabled people across Nicaragua. She said: “It was incredibly challenging. Being in a jungle made me feel more disabled than ever, especially when I got dysentery.”
In 2008 she appeared on Britain’s Missing Top Model, a televised modelling competition for disabled women. It led to a job modelling Stella McCartney’s Adidas London 2012 collection. She said: “I started to realise how little representation there was for young disabled women. We were practically invisible and I wanted to change that.”
“Disabled women were practically invisible”
Miss Morgan has set about tackling the two issues close to her heart – unsafe driving and the normalisation of disability – with impressive vigour. Last year she filmed a BBC TV documentary, Licence To Kill, in the hope of educating teenagers on the dangers of inexperienced drivers. She said: “It explores the sometimes life-changing and fatal consequences of driving mistakes. I’m trying to educate young people on dangerous driving and change their attitudes.”
In the same vein she is also an ambassador for Drive iQ. It is a free online programme designed by traffic psychologists to enable students to experience simulated versions of driving in difficult conditions. And she has started touring schools and colleges giving talks about the subject.
One thing that amazes many people is that despite continuing health problems, such as kidney infections and pressure sores, Miss Morgan said that he didn’t regret her accident. She said: “It was the best thing that could have happened to me. I have an exciting career as a product designer and TV presenter, a loving fiancé and I’m happy. Plus if I can save at least one young life, then everything has been worth it.”
When people find out that she has a fiancé it often prompts their curiosity. In one article about her life since the crash, she wrote: “I often joke that there are only three things people really want to know about me: Can you have sex, can you have children and how do you go to the loo?”
The chief executive of Drive iQ, Sarah Rowley, said: “Sophie has the most incredible ‘can do’ attitude. It’s so rare to meet someone so fearless, who has gone through something so dramatic and scary. Just watching the response Sophie gets when she visits a school to chat to young people, you know they won’t forget what they’ve seen and heard. Sophie’s the bravest girl you’ll ever meet and is changing the world for better.”
