A FORMER school secretary who suffered horrific injuries and nearly died in a road crash while working in Africa has criticised City of York Council.

Mum-of-two Heather Heeles, 47, of College Road, Copmanthorpe, said she feels let down by the council and St Mary’s CE School in Askham Richard.

Mrs Heeles was one of four members of staff from York schools – St Mary’s and Westfield School – to go to their twin school, St Paul’s in Begoro in Ghana, in the February half-term break last year.

They were in a minibus between the airport and a hotel in the host school village when it was hit by another vehicle.

Mrs Heeles has now spoken of her ordeal and is unhappy with the way the council and school handled the aftermath. Pete Dwyer, the council’s director of education, said the incident was still under investigation and said he could not comment.

Mrs Heeles was asleep and resting her left arm against the window when the crash happened, and she awoke to find she had suffered horrific injuries to her arm. She was taken to a local hospital and was conscious throughout the entire ordeal. She said: “I think my body just went into shock; they said I was very calm and in control. I couldn’t really remember a lot. A doctor came and looked at my arm and decided that they couldn’t do anything there and I’d have to be taken to hospital in the capital Accra.

“They just didn’t know what to do with me. I had to ask for blood transfusions because I could feel myself dying.

“I asked them if it was clean blood because of HIV, and they said it was, but since I have been back home I have had to undergo testing, which has been horrendous, but I am all clear.” Mrs Heeles, already awake for nearly 24 hours, had to endure a two-hour ride in a make-shift ambulance to Accra. Her colleague called one of the parents from her school who she knew was a surgeon so he could talk to the doctor in Ghana about how best to help save her arm.

She said: “It was swollen up to the size of an elephant’s leg and they’d wrapped it up, but they wanted to amputate and the other teachers who were with me were begging them to save my arm.”

Mrs Heeles’ colleague had tried to contact her head teacher with no luck. She said they had been given no emergency contact details for the council, so one of the teachers called her husband, who then contacted Mrs Heeles’s husband Jonathan to tell him what had happened.

Mr Heeles used council travel insurance to fly her back to the UK, where she spent five-and-a-half weeks in Leeds General Infirmary.

“The accident severed two of the three nerves in her left arm which means she now only has very restricted movement.

She has had 23 operations to reconstruct her arm, using muscle tissue from her back and skin grafts from her leg.

She has also been left with osteomyelitis as a result of a water-borne bacteria infection doctors think she contracted in Ghana, meaning the bones in her shattered arm have crumbled.

The drugs used to treat her infection have also destroyed the hairs in her ear canal, meaning she will have balance problems for the rest of her life and needs to use a wheelchair to get around outdoors and a crutch indoors.

Mrs Heeles has two children, Charlotte, 15 and Benjamin, 11, and says life has changed beyond all recognition.

She said: “Jonathan’s a train driver and works shifts and if he’s not at home my son or daughter have to dress me and help me do the simplest of things because I can’t carry anything.”

She said a £15,000 pay out from the council’s travel insurance was used to buy a specially adapted car so she can still drive, but she can no longer work. She said she had received no compensation from the council and has been forced to take early retirement.

Her main complaint against the council and the school, where she worked for nine years, is that there was no Health and Safety inspection carried out before the trip and they were not warned of the dangers.

Since the accident she said the council and the school had failed in their duty of care to her and she felt very let down. Mrs Heeles said she decided to tell her story after the council overpaid her severance pay and then demanded £1,539 of the £3,300 back.

No one from St Mary’s CE School was available to comment when contacted by The Press.

Pete Dwyer, at the council, said: “This was clearly a dreadful incident which has had an understandably traumatic impact upon Mrs Heeles life. The accident and the circumstances around it remain under investigation and as a result it would be inappropriate to comment further.”