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Alton Towers Amputee Leah Washington And Boyfriend Joe Pugh Celebrate Five Years Together

Alton Towers Amputee Leah Washington And Boyfriend Joe Pugh Celebrate Five Years Together

The pair were on their first date at the amusement park when the ride they were on crashed

Rebecca Shepherd

Rebecca Shepherd

Alton Towers crash survivors Leah Washington and Joe Pugh have celebrated their fifth anniversary together in lockdown - almost five years after they went on their first date to the amusement park.

The 23-year-old amputee from south Yorkshire shared a picture of the pair together on her Instagram page with the caption: "5 years."

Joe posted the same picture but wrote: "We made it to 5 years should currently be in a log cabin but garden celebrations (with the household only to all the corona police) will have to do! Thanks for all the good times & memories over the last 5 year's Leah! Happy anniversary."

The pair are isolating together.
Instagram/leahwashy

Joe's Instagram story gave some more detail to their day of celebrations - they were playing beer pong, shot roulette and got a takeaway from their local pub. Nice.

Leah and Joe were on their first proper date at Alton Towers back in June 2015 when the ride they were on - the Smiler - smashed into a stationary carriage.

Leah was one of two passengers who lost a leg, while Joe shattered two kneecaps in the horrific crash which was put down to human error after an investigation found that an engineer had wrongly restarted the ride while a stationary carriage was on the track.

When the Smiler crash happened, at least 16 were injured and five people were seriously hurt, but the trapped ride-goers had to wait a gruelling four hours to be freed as they sat 25ft (7.6m) up in the air at an angle of 45 degrees.

Since then, Alton Towers has been fined £5 million ($6m) over the incident. However, a solicitor representing eight of the 16 injured said: "Money will never replace limbs, nor heal psychological scars."

A judge sentencing the theme park's operator Merlin Attractions Operations Ltd said the Smiler crash was 'avoidable.'

Sentencing Judge Michael Chambers QC described the crash as a 'catastrophic failure', adding: "This was a needless and avoidable accident in which those who were injured were lucky not to be killed."

Featured Image Credit: Instagram/leahwashy

Topics: UK News, Alton Towers, UK