When rookie police officer Sarah De Meulemeester stepped on the accelerator of her Peugeot 308 patrol car to answer a 999 call, it set off a train of events that would devastate the lives of so many people.
By the time she got out of her car in Adswood, Stockport, on a dark and wet evening of Boxing Day 2020, a boy of 15 was laying critically injured in the road.
Khia Whitehead, a popular lad and a keen footballer, would spend months at Manchester Royal Infirmary with his parents Laura and Duane at his bedside.
He survived but there was a terrible cost. He was paralysed and left in a 'persistent vegetative state' following a catastrophic brain injury. READ MORE: Join the FREE Manchester Evening News WhatsApp community He will require 24-hour specialist nursing care for the rest of his life.
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