Elber Twomey on her campaign for suicide awareness training for Gardaí

I remember getting up. We went for a swim in the pool because it was something that I always wanted, because Oisín loved the bath. We had our lunch and then we went for a drive.”

Up until 2.46pm on 6 July 2012, Elber Twomey and her family had the perfect day, the perfect life. But at 2.47pm, she lost her “everybody” when a suicidal driver crashed into their family car while on holidays in Devon in England, claiming the lives of her 16-month-old son, Oisín, her unborn baby daughter, Elber Marie, and – 10 months later – her beloved husband, Connie.

Nobody expected Elber to survive when the family were first brought to Torbay Hospital. A nurse later told her that after they bandaged her from head to toe to try to stop the bleeding, she paused to kiss a small, bare patch of skin on her shoulder.

“She thought she would be the last person to kiss me alive,” explains Elber, who has no memory of the moment she learned that she had lost her children. “Maybe it’s the brain’s own way of protecting itself,” she reasons, “but thank God I don’t remember being told.”

More than two years later, sitting in the community centre in Elber’s home village of Rockchapel, Co Cork, there is little evidence of the physical devastation of the accident on the 38-year-old primary school teacher, though she still travels frequently to the UK for medical check-ups.

Indeed, when she was airlifted to Cork University Hospital just weeks after the accident, she asked to go home after three days, but still made the 100-mile round trip every day to be by Connie’s bedside with the help of her parents, Rita and Timmy, her sister, Norma, and her brother, Tomás.

Sadly, Connie passed away on 3 May 2013. His loss was “beyond words”, and it’s hard to find the words to ask Elber how life must be today. I stumble and stutter, but Elber deals with even the most awkward of questions with grace and strength.

“I’d be the first one to say it – I’d prefer if I wasn’t spared. I’d have preferred to be gone with Oisín and Little Lady, of course I would. But, listen, you don’t get a choice. And thank God for the grace of independence. I can live in our home, I can drive my car ... thank God.”

Faith

Around one wrist, Elber wears a rosary. She has always had faith.

“We were mass-goers, Connie and myself, and we always took Oisín to mass once he got big enough. Every night putting him to bed, we’d say his bedtime prayers and I’d say the rosary with him.”

And she firmly believes that it is her faith that has not only kept her going in the most unimaginable of circumstances, but has also given her the courage to campaign for suicide awareness training for gardaí at home and in the UK – a challenge she took on after a report into the accident stated there were no lessons to be learned.

“Four out of five lives lost,” she says incredulously, “and ‘no-learning outcome’.”

That fourth life was of Marek Wojciechowski, the 26-year-old father of two who, on the morning of the crash, had left a suicide letter after the breakdown of his marriage. The police in Devon had been alerted, so when an officer spotted his car, he initiated a pursuit.

CCTV footage later showed that Marek had actually driven the same stretch of road between two roundabouts 11 times before the police officer saw him. Flashed to pull over, Marek appeared to initially slow down, before suddenly swerving across the road, straight in to the Twomeys’ car.

To Elber, this was “the only difference between the 11th loop and the 12th loop”, and while she acknowledges that Marek was responsible for the crash, she reiterates the point that her barrister made later at the inquest that pursuing him was like blowing a whistle at somebody standing at the edge of a cliff.

That Elber could have compassion for Marek would surprise most people – herself included, not so long ago. She relates a story of how a priest once asked her if she ever prayed for Marek.

“I said: ‘Jeepers, no,’” she recalls. “And he asked me would I and I said that I couldn’t. And he said: ‘I’ll pray for him every day on your behalf until you are able to do so.’

“I said: ‘I hope you live to be very old,’ because I never in my wildest thoughts thought that I’d ever say a prayer for him. That was in September, and in November I was lighting a candle for him. So I have a lot to be thankful to [the priest] for.”

In what sense?

“Had that not happened, my goodness, I’d be bitter and you just ...” she pauses. “I certainly wouldn’t be going down the road I’m going at the moment. I suppose it started me trying to get a positive out of complete and utter tragedy.”

Police training

Having spent months researching policy regarding the lack of police training in suicide awareness, Elber was determined to have her message heard at baby Oisín’s inquest last November, which brought her all the way to the high court in London.

“Before the end of October I went to San Giovanni, over to Padre Pio, and I pleaded for help for going to Little Man’s inquest, and I do believe that’s where I got the strength from,” she says.

“It was in honour of Oisín and obviously Connie and Little Lady – try and spare another family from our kind of tragedy.”

The inquest also gave Elber the opportunity to meet Marek’s widow, who – according to newspaper reports – blamed herself for the tragedy.

“That to me was all wrong,” says Elber, “because husbands and wives separate every day and this is not the outcome and I wanted her to know that I didn’t blame her.”

At the closing of the inquest in December, the coroner called on the Association of Chief Police Officers to review how police officers approach suicidal persons. At five o’clock on New Year’s Day, Elber got a phone call that policy was changing in Devon and Cornwall so that only specialised officers could initiate a pursuit.

“I’m hoping, obviously, they will go much further and that they will be trained in suicide awareness,” she says, “but I would consider it a message from heaven.”

While most people would consider that a victory in itself, Elber is determined to make a difference in Ireland too. She has met with Leo Varadker and Frances Fitzgerald, has had support from two joint Oireachtas committees and, most recently, visited Templemore to speak to gardaí training staff about introducing suicide awareness training for new recruits and as part of their programme.

In response to a query submitted by Irish Country Living, a Garda spokesperson confirmed that, having met with Elber, the force is continuing to work on improving their expertise in this area. Training has been provided to garda members under the ASIST (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) workshop programme, which is co-ordinated by the National Office for Suicide Prevention, and the new garda training programme will include ASIST workshops as part of the BA in Applied Policing.

“Please God, it’s only a matter of time,” she says. “I’d love to see all the gardaí trained in suicide awareness and it’s as much for the gardaí as it is for the suicidal soul. My thinking being, if any garda encounters a suicidal person, there’s no guarantee that they can save them, but at least if the garda has basic suicide awareness training, they’ll know they have done as best as they can with their knowledge, as opposed to having no training at all.”

Rememorial

Many people who have been in a dark place themselves have written letters to Elber, while her work has also brought her in to contact with charities like Pieta House, Inspire Ireland, Suicide Aware (Cork) and the 3Ts, who along with Torbay and Derriford hospitals in the UK and CUH, were the beneficiaries of the first Twomey Family Rememorial Weekend in June, which raised €70,000. She pays tribute to everybody who made it possible – the local community, musician Liam O’Connor and GAA legend Michéal Ó Muircheartaigh – but it was understandably an emotional occasion.

“I remember the Friday, I spent most of the day crying and at about six o’clock I went in to the cemetery and I pleaded for help because the opening night was on and I couldn’t be a mess,” she admits. “I didn’t want that I was going to break down and upset everybody who was there to help and support. But it was a wonderful weekend.”

There is not a day that passes that she does not cry, but “that’s good too – that’s normal”.

“I have an army in heaven who get my ass out of bed every morning, and I believe that from the bottom of my heart,” she says.

Before the accident, she was always a worrier. Not any more.

“To be honest with you, I used to do a big plan. I don’t do a big plan any more,” she says. “My focus now is the campaign and I really believe when that’s done, I’ll know where I’m going next.”

To chart her journey and share her campaign, she has also started a blog: Where There Is Life, There Is Hope. And despite all she has been through, it’s clear that hope is one thing that Elber Twomey will never lose.

“If I had no faith and belief and thought that this was it, I’d worry where I would be now, to be honest with you,” she says, “but my thinking is, I’m only passing through. Please God, when I get to the other side, they’ll be waiting.”