When Emma Smale broke down in tears on her wedding day it was not just because she was standing beside her adoring husband Kyle.
They were also tears of gratitude to be alive after she miraculously survived the massacre carried out by gunman Derrick Bird 10 years ago this week.
Bird drove around Cumbria with a shotgun and murdered 12 people and injured 11 more before killing himself. Emma, then 20, stared death in the face when the deranged cabbie pointed his gun at her and pulled the trigger.
It was only thanks to another taxi driver who shielded her from the blast that she lived to tell the tale. Today she revealed the tragedy forged a bond between her and Kyle Smale, a man she had only been on a handful of dates with at that point.
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