A drink driver has been jailed for causing a horrific head on crash which left a young mother too badly injured to care for her children for four months.
The victim, aged 33, is still not able to play football or active games with her two sons aged four and two, who are still plagued by nightmares about the crash.
Alcoholic Shane Skinner was driving home from a Sunday lunchtime drinking session at 80 mph in a 30 mph built up area when he lost control of his car which flew sideways down the road before hitting the Vauxhall.
The impact was so great it was thrown on the air and she suffered near fatal injuries which have left her with mobility problems and permanent facial scarring. Police described his car as being driven like a missile.
She was treated at the scene by a former army doctor who said her condition reminded him of a battlefield casualty while callous Skinner smoked by the side of the road and said 'oh well, it's done now."
Even when he was told of the torment he had wreaked on the victim and her young family he said 'it's not as if she's lost a limb'.
Her two sons were in the car with her and witnessed her trapped in her seat, screaming in pain, with horrific injuries to her leg, and head.
She spent nine days in hospital before she was well enough to see them again and now says he feels guilty she was not able to be with them during the most traumatic days of their young lives.
Civil engineer Skinner, aged 43, was jailed for three years at Exeter Crown Court after Judge Phillip Wassall heard a victim impact statement from the victim setting out how the accident has left her family's life shattered.
She has been forced to give up her job at an insurance firm and now needs help to be able to care for her children, who she can no longer play with in the way she did.
She had undergone five operations, spent a month in hospital while her face was rebuilt, and may still need surgery on injuries to both legs and feet.
Skinner, of Widgery Road, Exeter, admitted drink driving and causing serious injury by dangerous driving. He has two previous drink driving convictions. He was jailed for three years and banned from driving for five years.
Judge Wassall told him:"The injuries which you caused were not only life threatening. Ultimately they were life changing for her and her family. That is going to be the case for a long time to come.
"You were driving in a criminally dangerous way under the influence of alcohol, driving in excess of 70 mph in a prolonged course of bad driving.
"It is purely a matter of luck than no-one was killed and she managed to survive. It is difficult to imagine a worse case of its sort."
Miss Eleanor Purkis, prosecuting, said the woman was driving with her children up Pinhoe Road at 2 pm on Sunday May 18 last year when her car was hit by Skinner who lost control.
His speed was estimated by passers by at between 80 to 100 mph and as at least 73 mph at the moment of impact by a police expert.
She suffered catastrophic injuries and ex army medic Philip Pistorius, who saw the crash, thought she had died. He said her condition was as shocking as anything he had seen during active service.
He also saw Skinner standing opposite, smoking and talking on his mobile phone. He told him:"Oh well, it's done now." He was heard on his mobile complaining that his own car was a write off.
A nearby resident said the sound of the accident was like a bomb going off and witnesses saw the woman's car propelled into the air by the force of the crash.
Skinner gave a positive breath test at the scene and a blood test gave a reading of 175 milligrams, more than double the limit of 80. Two half finished bottled of vodka were found in his car.
A police officer read the woman's victim impact statement in which she recalled how her youngest son shied away from her in hospital because of her facial injuries.
She was too unwell to look after her children until September and they did not return to her home in Woodbury full time until November.
She has no memory of the crash, is suffering from PTSD, and becomes upset when her children talk about it or have flashbacks about the accident.
She said:"I feel lucky to be alive. I could easily have died but my life has changed massively. I can no longer chase around after my boys. I can't play football with them I can't lift them and hug them and they are suffering as a result.
"I have had my independence removed from me and that is very hard. During the time I was in hospital I was not able to comfort my children during the most traumatic time of their lives and that is what has upset me the most.
"I know it is not my fault but I can never forgive myself for leaving them at that time."
Mr Charles Hind, defending, said Skinner does have sympathy with the victims and the shock of the accident has led him to confront his drink problem, join Alcoholics Anonymous, and abstain since that day.
