Couple who suffered horrific injuries in Alton Towers rollercoaster crash get married during emotional ceremony
A COUPLE who suffered horrific injuries in the Alton Towers rollercoaster crash have wedded in an emotional ceremony.
Leah Washington has tied the knot with Joe Pugh nine years after the pair were caught up in a horror smash on the Smiler rollercoaster.
The couple were aged just 17 and 18 and enjoying their first proper date when their carriage smashed into a stationary car at 50mph.
While Joe smashed both of his kneecaps in the horror, Leah lost one of her legs.
Leah and Joe drifted apart after the crash before overcoming their struggles.
The Barnsley couple got engaged during a romantic getaway to Italy in 2022 – and have now wedded in their home county of Yorkshire.
Leah wore a dazzling jewel-studded white dress and carried a bouquet of white Yorkshire roses, the Mail reports.
Joe sported a classic white tuxedo with a matching white rose in his buttonhole.
The couple posted an adorable black-and-white clip of their first dance on Instagram.
Leah is seen embracing starry-eyed Joe as confetti flutters onto the dancefloor.
Posting on social media last year, Leah said: “Eight years since my life flipped, how time has flown!
“A brief little journey from then until now, a 17-year-old girl thinking what was going to happen next after surgery.
“Fast-forward 8 years and I feel the best I have in a long time, planning my dream wedding.
“I’m feeling continued improvements in my fitness and the use of my prosthetic with support from my friends, family & followers.”‘
She told OK: “‘If you’d told either of us during the weeks that followed our horrific accident at Alton Towers we’d be planning our wedding now, I don’t think we’d have believed it.”
The Alton Towers crash
ON June 2, 2015 revellers were removed from the Smiler ride at Alton Towers after a warning light flashed up.
Staff sent a test train around the track – and left it sitting there after a breakdown in communication.
They let passengers back on the ride despite their computer system warning the track was blocked.
Engineers overrode the fault and the carriage hurtled into the stationary car with the force of a 90mph car crash.
At least 16 people were injured in the horror, five of them seriously.
The trapped visitors had to wait more than four hours for rescue workers to reach them.
They were left hanging 25ft in the air at an angle of 45 degrees, pinned in by the wreckage.
Leah Washington from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, and Vicky Balch from Leyland, Lancashire, both had legs amputated.
Joe Pugh, also from Barnsley, and Daniel Thorpe, 28, from Buxton, Derbyshire, also suffered serious leg injuries, along with 49-year-old Chandaben Chauhan.