How are we still alive? Bride reveals from hospital bed the night newlyweds’ lives were shattered in head-on horrifying crash that left four dead

It took just a split second to shatter an inseparable newlywed couple’s happy start to married life – and leave four families grieving.

Georgina and Tom Daniels had been going home after a night out with close friends who were about to embark to Australia for ‘the journey of a lifetime’.

Now, after a horrific crash which left four people dead when a car smashed head-on into their taxi, she has bravely spoken about their life-changing injuries.

And after heart-stopping footage emerged of the same car speeding through busy streets at 120mph the night before, Mrs Daniels has issued a warning to a selfish minority who drive for ‘attention and status’.

While they only got married seven months ago, the 28-year-old NHS manager and her 29-year-old salesman husband have been together for ten years.

Along with another couple – with whom they were ‘best friends’ – they had booked a taxi for the short journey home in the early hours of Sunday, January 11.

At the wheel of the Citroen C4 Picasso was 54-year-old Masrob Ali, a father-of-four who took pride in his safe driving.

Fatefully, however, also out on the streets of Bolton, Greater Manchester, was a high-powered Seat Leon, containing four young men.

It is understood that it was being driven by 18-year-old mechanic Mohammed Jibrael Mukhtar, whose older brother had warned him that speeding at 180mph would leave him ‘dead and in pieces’.

The night before, a passenger had filmed as it sped to a horrifying 122mph through a built-up area by night, swerving to avoid slower-moving traffic, with the footage uploaded to social media.

CCTV cameras captured the appalling moment the Seat – apparently on the wrong side of the 30mph road – smashed head-on into Mr Ali’s private hire car.

He suffered fatal injuries, as did Mr Mukhtar – known as Jibril – plus Farhan Patel, also 18, and Mohammed Danyaal, aged 19, who were all in the Seat.

After an agonising delay, the four injured friends were cut out of the unrecognisable wreck of the Citroen, along with one survivor from the Seat.

Speaking from her hospital bed as she and her husband come to terms with life-changing injuries, Mrs Daniels said: ‘I can’t fathom how we’re all still alive – it should have taken our lives.

‘I have no idea how we’re all still here after seeing what happened to everyone and the state we are all in.’

They are the lucky ones – and yet with both needing 24-hour care, they face having rebuild their shattered lives separately.

‘All of the recovery, rebuilding, the things we will have to get over,’ Mrs Daniels said.

‘And we will have to do it apart.

‘It’s cruel. There are no words to describe it.’

The smash has sparked a debate over the appalling driving of a tiny minority – as well as complaints from local residents about a lack of speed cameras.

While police are still investigating the tragedy, Jibril’s older brother has apologised on his behalf.

Miraj Mukhtar, 21, shared his chilling final message to his brother, who works at his garage, Narkos High Performance Tuning.

It read: ‘180 mph one mistake tyre blows or car comes in front. Dead & in pieces. Be smarter.’

Even as the couple begin their long journey to recovery, Mrs Daniels has a message to anyone who treats public roads as a racetrack.

‘This kind of danger can’t just be acceptable, where you just say: ‘Watch out’.

‘When people drive like that, it’s done for attention and status.

‘It just needs to be that it doesn’t happen.’

Speaking about the Saturday night out together in Bolton, Mrs Daniels said it had been a ‘send-off’ for friends setting off on an adventure to Australia.

‘It should have been such an exciting part of their lives – for the night to end that way it did, it’s shocking to say the least.

‘It’s one extreme to the other.’

While her husband remembers ‘bits’ of the 12.45am smash and the massive emergency response, she recalls ‘every single second’.

‘The biggest shock of all is that we are all still here. It was just devastation.’

While they are newlyweds, they have been a couple for over a decade.

‘We’ve basically always lived together – even when we didn’t have our own place, we would pack bags and stay at each other’s mum’s house for three or four days at a time,’ Mrs Daniels said, tears flowing as she struggled to come to terms with the sudden transformation of their lives.

‘We’ve never been separate for too long.

‘Now it’s our first year of marriage and we are going to have to live apart with life-changing injuries, with no end date.’

Since the smash the couple have been into surgery four times between them.

‘My legs are ok but my other injuries are going to need 24-hour care, but Tom now has major mobility issues, especially using stairs.

‘We will both need 24-hour care for a long time.’

To help fund their needs while they are unable to go back to work, a close friend has set up an online GoFundMe appeal – benefiting Mr and Mrs Daniels and their friends, who so far do not want to be named.

It has already raised more than £45,000.

‘Our injuries are life-changing, we don’t know the extent of them yet, and they’ll require so much aftercare,’ Mrs Daniels said.

‘As much pain as we’ve both been in, the mental side of it is 100 times worse.’

For their part, relatives of taxi driver Mr Ali, of Blackburn, are trying to take comfort from the belief that he ‘wasn’t at fault and didn’t do anything wrong’.

‘He was just the kindest man,’ daughter Humayra Ali, 29, told the Daily Mail.

She added that her father was ‘such a safe driver’ and used to tell his family: ‘Don’t worry about me.’

Amidst her anguish, Mrs Daniels is still able to imagine the ‘devastating’ impact on Mr Ali’s family.

‘It was just a short journey and he was nothing but lovely to us,’ she said.

For his part, Mr Mukhtar, whose brother is understood to have been driving the Seat, has said he ‘advised’ him to stop driving at 90mph or more, adding he had made ‘a huge mistake’.

‘You don’t know how much I told him to slow down and try to chill, just chill out and calm down,’ he said in a TikTok video.

‘Be safe. Don’t do those speeds, don’t do them speeds I said to him multiple times.’

Lucie Wilson, who organised the fundraiser for Mr and Mrs Daniels, said ‘no one in the community seems to be surprised’ by the devastating smash, with friends now fearful of driving through the area.

Bolton council has responded to complaints following the crash by pledging to take ‘all necessary measures’ to prevent a similar tragedy in the future.

Greater Manchester Police last week said it was ‘in the early stages’ of investigating ‘this terrible incident’.

As for Mr and Mrs Daniels, they are ‘just living hour by hour’.

Recalling the joyful scenes of their wedding just last year, Mrs Daniels said: ‘We are trying to be positive and trying to get back to how we were in those pictures.

‘That’s the only thing we can look forward to.’

You can donate to Tom and Georgina’s GoFundMe here.