WHEN Becky Sharp saw an out-of-control car veering towards her, she summoned up a split-second clarity of thought and pushed her baby daughter’s buggy out of harm’s way.
Unfortunately, 36-year-old Becky was then “projected about the length of a cricket pitch in the air, thrown like a ragdoll” and landed face down, struggling to breathe.
36-year-old Becky Sharp pushing her baby daughter’s buggy out of harm’s way with split-second clarity shows how a mother’s love can be superhumanBournemouth News
According to Becky’s husband Dan, the couple’s three daughters suffered ‘pain and confusion’ at their mother’s absenceBournemouth
She sustained a severe traumatic brain injury and several fractures, and spent eight months in a coma, missing out on the lives of her three daughters who, according to Becky’s husband Dan, suffered “pain and confusion” at their mother’s absence.
This week, the driver, Dale Clark, a 38-year-old scaffolder of New Milton, Hants, who told police he had consumed vodka and £210 worth of cocaine in the two days before the crash, was jailed for three years and eight months after admitting causing serious injury by dangerous driving, drink-driving and failing to stop after the accident.
Becky, who attended court, is still in a wheelchair because of painful complications from her leg fracture.
She also suffers cognitive issues and problems with memory and fatigue.
The sentence given to Clark seems unduly lenient given the life-changing effect his poor life choices have had on Becky and her young family.
But that’s not what I want to focus on today.
Let’s celebrate the superhuman power of a mother’s love.
In Becky’s case, it was the psychological strength of being able to place her child’s welfare above her own, with a lightning reaction as catastrophe came barrelling towards her.
For others, it’s a physical power you don’t know you possess until you need it.
Hysterical strength
In 1982, a middle-aged mother called Angela Cavallo was watching her teenage son tinkering with his ’64 Chevy Impala car outside their house in Georgia, US, when it fell on top of him.
Without thinking, she summoned up the strength to lift it four inches off the ground so he could be dragged to safety.
Another mother broke down a solid door with her shoulder when her toddler was trapped inside a room.
Experts call it “hysterical strength” and it’s a power that can come from a rush of adrenalin and stress when faced with an emergency situation.
Men get it too, of course, but when women — largely regarded as the physically weaker sex — display it, it is more unusual and often related to protecting their children.
It’s a tricky phenomenon for experts to nail down because placing people in emergency situations to test their hysterical strength would be unethical.
But stories such as Angela’s strength and Becky’s lightning reaction, remind us that it’s very much a real thing.
And let’s face it, for many women, a traumatic childbirth is in itself an act of “hysterical strength”.
Texan Sofia, 43, who broke down her toddler’s door, tells American website romper.com: “I’ve done a lot of crazy things in my life with my body. I’ve competed in a triathlon. I’ve gone skydiving. I’ve been in two car accidents.
“But nothing has been as exhausting or as taxing as giving birth.
“Not even that breaking down the door situation.”
And Becky, who has no memory of the accident, has given birth three times and nearly lost her own life in trying to protect one of her children.
It doesn’t get stronger than that.
IT’S ALL BRIT OF A MESS
BRITNEY SPEARS has a right to tell her life story as she wishes.
But in any warts ’n’ all autobiography there are always significant others from along the way who find their private moments exposed by default.
Revealing everything in a warts ‘n’ all autobiography can also tread on the privacy of othersGetty
And so we learn that Britney got pregnant at 19 and had a termination because, she says, her then boyfriend Justin Timberlake “didn’t want to be a father” at the time.
Justin, now married to actress Jessica Biel, has remained silent so far, but a quick glance at his Instagram tells you that he’s now a very proud dad to sons Silas, eight, and Phineas, three.
Doubtless, neither has access to the internet yet, but the school playground is another matter.
Either way, at some point their dad may find himself having to explain an uncomfortable truth he might have hoped would stay secret for ever.
FORMER England rugby star James Haskell jokes that, as wife Chloe didn’t take his surname, his ego often gets dented at restaurants when he’s greeted with: “Hello, Mr Madeley – welcome back.”
One solution James: Book the table yourself.
MITE SCARY
IF someone talks about nits, I always start scratching my head.
And now that a reported plague of bedbugs is in the news, I’m convinced an army of them have taken up residence in my mattress, and I have vacuumed it twice in the past week.
Jane tells how she’s vacuumed her mattress twice with a reported plague of bedbugs in the newsAlamy
Perhaps I’ll resort to the old military trick of standing bed legs in small tins of petrol to stop the little blighters climbing up.
Although today, a former serviceman wrote that, while serving at RAF Sharjah in Dubai in 1958, the bedbugs outfoxed the petrol ploy by coming across the ceiling and dropping down when they felt body heat.
Nurse! I’ll never sleep again.
What’s Mad rush, Sadiq?
IN the 1991 documentary Madonna: Truth Or Dare, she’s shown angrily berating her management team backstage after a concert.
The reason? The first few rows were stony-faced “industry” types and she wanted it to be true fans.
Madonna has long wanted true fans to show up at her concerts, not ‘industry’ typesGetty
So you wonder how she felt about seeing London Mayor Sadiq Khan and his wife Saadiya in a prime front-row positionRex Features
Fast-forward 32 years and one can only imagine her mood backstage after one of her concerts at the 02 last week.
For there, in a prime front-row position at the end of the stage runway, was none other than London Mayor Sadiq Khan with his wife Saadiya.
They could be genuine fans, of course, but doubtful considering they were spotted leaving “well before the halfway point”.
Though, to be fair, they may have been leaving early to avoid the capital’s gridlocked traffic jams . . . primarily caused by various daft road initiatives brought in by, er, Sadiq Khan.
CELEBRITY chef Rick Stein’s seafood restaurants in Cornwall lost more than £1.2 million last year.
He says his business nearly went under and it’s down to high energy and fish prices, and fewer customer numbers after Covid.
Could it also be that, after years of anti-tourist rhetoric from certain locals – many of whom weren’t born there themselves – once-frequent visitors have now relocated to a county that actually makes them feel welcome?
IT seems that even the unparalleled narration skills of Sir David Attenborough couldn’t stop the BBC quietly shelving wildlife series Dynasties, about animals fighting to protect themselves against rivals.
It will reportedly continue in some form under another name.
Sir David Attenborough’s BBC show is continuing under another name – maybe as ‘Dynasties’ brought to mind Alexis Colby and Cristal Carrington squabblingBBC
In other words, it wasn’t Sir David or the superb footage that was the issue.
It was a poor title that perhaps deterred potential viewers for fear they’d see Alexis Colby and Cristal Carrington squabbling over a pair of power earrings.
MOLLY LEGACY AT RISK
HOW many times have you heard a politician talking tough and promising changes that, to you, seem like common sense moves that should have been made years ago?
Yet time and again, they act like bystanders simply watching an oncoming crisis when they’re supposed to be the ones with the power to do something about it.
Provisions to water down tougher and more protective standards for online platforms puts the legacy of tragic Molly Russell at riskPA
Today, Tory Nadine Dorries – former Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport – revealed she was given “a single piece of advice” by her predecessor Oliver Dowden.
“Kick the Online Safety Bill into the long grass and leave it there.”
Sorry?
This, don’t forget, is the bill aimed at setting tougher and more protective standards for online platforms such as TikTok, YouTube and Facebook.
Among its champions is the father of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who took her own life in 2017 and, according to the coroner, “died from an act of self-harm while suffering from depression and the negative effects of online content”.
Yet Ms Dorries who, to her credit, pushed on with the bill while still in the job, fears that the same intense lobbying from powerful tech companies that led to her predecessor’s warning is now being reapplied.
Firstly, a provision to regulate “legal but harmful” online material has been removed from the Online Safety Bill.
And now, leading academics have warned that if certain elements of the Digital Markets Bill are watered down it could work in favour of Big Tech.
Hmmm.
The Tories are still reeling after a trouncing in two by-elections last week, and one of the biggest factors was voter “what’s the point, nothing ever changes?” apathy.
Little wonder, when countless politicians promise the world then deliver an atlas after being nobbled by lobbyists, partisan civil servants and naive aides getting all their opinions from Twitter, or whatever it’s called these days.
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