Wedding joy for Scot 18 months after she nearly died in horror crash but was saved... by her watch
The beaming smile on Meg Coburn's face perfectly summed up the joy she felt as she married her husband Sean O'Connor.
However, the happy occasion in Scotland was only possible thanks to a smartwatch which saved her life following a horror crash.
Ms Coburn, who moved from her hometown of Hawick, in Roxburghshire, to Australia, was driving home from her job on a sheep farm when her car ran off the road and crashed into a tree.
By sheer luck, the 27-year-old was wearing an Apple smartwatch that was designed to detect crashes. It kicked into action and – when she failed to respond to its prompts – contacted emergency services on her behalf.
This call, and the watch's tracking system, allowed paramedics to find her exact location – lying in a ditch in 'the middle of nowhere'.
The medical team later said they were amazed she had survived given the extent of her injuries and the isolated area of Victoria where she was found clinging to life.
She had to be flown to hospital from the remote crash site.
The terrifying incident in December 2023 was the start of a long health battle that saw her undergo gruelling physio sessions so she could walk down the aisle at Traquair House, near Peebles, last week.
Discussing her near-death experience, Ms Coburn told the Mail: 'I feel so grateful for that technology. I just used to wear the watch occasionally to count my steps. I didn't even know it could do something like that.'
She suffered bleeding on the brain, collapsed lungs, a fractured pelvis and extensive nerve damage.
Following emergency treatment, she spent a total of 123 days at Royal Melbourne Hospital – and was unconscious for the first 12 of them.
The new bride said: 'They had to teach me how to walk and talk again. It was a long time before I could walk as far as I can today.'
Describing what it meant to be able to walk down the aisle, she added: 'It was a miracle for me. It's something no one would have expected.'
Ms Coburn moved to Australia in November 2016 to take up work as a sheep shearer, having learned the craft from her father Tony, 64.
She didn't usually wear the smartwatch but was using it on the day of the crash because she knew she had a busy day ahead of her and was interested to see how many steps she would rack up.
Following the alert sent by her watch, she was found by paramedics Luke Henderson and Alistair Kyrkou.
They later told a local newspaper in Australia that she had been 'in the middle of nowhere'. Mr Henderson said the majority of traumas like Ms Coburn's had proved fatal and it was his firm belief that the watch had saved her life.
The incident resulted in post- and pre-traumatic amnesia, with the result that Ms Coburn cannot remember anything from around three months before or three months after the crash. She said: 'I don't know how it happened, why it happened, or where it happened. It's very frustrating. However, I'm slightly glad I can't remember.'
Mr O'Connor, 36, had to call her family more than 10,000 miles away in Scotland to tell them what had happened.
Her loved ones, including mother Anne and sister Laurie, raced to be by her side within 48 hours of the crash. Her grateful sister said: 'Everybody did everything they possibly could to make sure that we were there as quickly as we possibly could be.'
Ms Coburn said that she now wears the watch regularly and has a profound sense of appreciation for it.
She said: 'I still have it and I will wear it until the day it dies.'
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