A man could only be recognised by his nose after being crushed by a horse while driving to work.
Ian Tilston, 34, was driving on the M56 from Hawarden to Nantwich when a horse catapulted onto his car as he drove down the slip road, reported the Echo.
The horse had escaped from a nearby field and as Ian exited junction 10, a car in front of him hit the horse. The horse then hit the 34-year-old’s car, crushing him and his car, according to the Echo report.
Ian underwent life-saving brain surgery at Salford Royal Hospital before undergoing a series of further treatments, one of which required recreating his face.
“He was put in an induced coma for a few weeks, and when he woke up they took him to The Walton Centre,” said his brother, Adam, to the ECHO, more than a year after the tragedy on January 10, 2022:
Adam added, “He had a number of surgeries and they even rebuilt his face. His entire face was crushed in the crash and he had to have a piece of his skull removed for surgery. He looked an absolute mess after the accident and we only knew it was him through his nose. He’s been at the Walton Centre for a year now. He’s lost his vision and can’t walk so he needs 24-hour care. They’re looking to discharge him but we need somewhere for him to go. We’re trying to transform our mum’s house now. We want him home to be able to enjoy some quality of life. We just want to get something in place for him. Police at the time said it was a freak accident and the fences were in fine condition but horses had since escaped.”
Adam said that Salford Royal informed him the brain bleeding in his younger sibling was the worst they had ever seen.
Since the tragedy, Ian is now able to partially move his right arm. But despite the progress, Adam says that his younger brother is still cognitively challenged as a result of his injuries and has days where he thinks it’s 2010.
Adam, a dad of one, said, “I was at work and around 9.30 am my grandad rang me, it was the first time in my life I’d heard him cry. I thought the worst and thought he had died. I went to see my grandparents and we waited for the news. Since then our entire lives have changed. At the start, we were preparing our lives for the worst. We could only recognise him through his nose. The turning point was when he was in ICU and he put his thumbs up to us.”
Ian’s family is now trying to raise money to pay for the repairs to be done at Adam and Ian’s mother’s house so that Ian may be discharged from The Walton Centre.