Alton Towers accidental amputee Leah Washington married her partner Joe Pugh in a stunning ceremony nine years after the couple were involved in a horror crash on the theme park’s The Smiler rollercoaster.
The couple got engaged during a romantic getaway to Italy in 2022, before Leah, 26, enjoyed a bachelorette party with a dozen close friends and family in the Algarve, Portugal, last year.
But the couple’s wedding was far from always an option: after the Alton Towers accident, in which Leah lost a leg and Joe broke both kneecaps and lost the ability to move one of his fingers, the couple split.
Then, aged just 17 and 18, the life-changing injuries they sustained on their first proper date occurred when the carriage they were riding in crashed into a second stationary car at around 50mph.
But despite the terrible extent of the couple’s injuries, they overcame their struggles and have now married in a beautiful ceremony surrounded by friends and family.
Joe Pugh (left) and Leah Washington (right) married in a stunning ceremony this week, nine years after the horror collapse of Alton Towers.
Leah, 26, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, lost a leg in the accident on The Smiler Ride in Alton Towers.
Leah stunned in a dazzling white dress adorned with jewels and carried a voluminous bouquet of white roses.
Her now-husband Joe opted for a simple black tuxedo, with a single matching white flower adorning his buttonhole.
Images from the intimate ceremony showed the couple celebrating with family friends as they shared a kiss outside the wedding venue.
Leah, from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, previously shared how she and her friends got caught up in last summer’s air traffic control chaos upon returning from her hen do.
She had shared several clips from her bachelorette party singing, dancing and having drinks at a beach club in the Algarve in August.
Her fiancé Joe even ordered the club 15 pink drinks for the group, later joking that it was raising expectations for his bachelor party, which was yet to come.
The couple got engaged during a romantic vacation to Italy in 2022.
Footage from the intimate ceremony showed the couple celebrating with family friends as they shared a kiss outside the wedding venue.
Leah Washington and Joe Pugh shared the news of their engagement on Instagram while they were abroad in 2022.
Leah took to Instagram to share adorable snaps of the couple during the trip, as well as the all-important diamond rock on her finger.
Speaking previously about how their relationship suffered after the tragic incident, Leah told Ok!: “If you had told any of us in the weeks following our horrific accident at Alton Towers that we would be planning our wedding now, I don’t think we would we would have believed it.
Leah has spoken openly about her recovery since the accident on social media, sharing clips of her participating in various sports, partying and even modeling.
In a post last year, he wrote: ‘8 years since my life changed, how time has flown!
‘A short little journey from then to now, a 17 year old girl thinking about what was going to happen next, lacking confidence after surgery and struggling to think positively…
“It’s been 8 years and I feel better than I have in a long time, planning the wedding of my dreams, feeling continued improvements in my fitness and prosthesis along with the support of my friends, family and followers.”
An investigation into the 2015 crash concluded that the crash was due to human error; An engineer had mistakenly restarted the trip while a stopped car was in front of him on the track.
The couple smiled as Leah shared their exciting news with her 25,000 Instagram followers.
Leah shared a photo of her sparkling diamond ring along with perfectly manicured nails during the couple’s trip to Venice.
Leah Washington, amputee from the Alton Towers accident, photographed shortly after the incident, in hospital
Alton Towers owner Merlin Tourism has been fined £5m for health and safety breaches which were called a “catastrophic failure” by Judge Michael Chambers QC.
At least 16 people were injured and five people were seriously injured.
They were fined an initial £5m and interim payments have covered Leah and Joe’s medical and physiotherapy bills to date, but the couple also lodged a “substantial” compensation claim.
Leah’s prosthetic leg, worth £60,000 and containing a microprocessor knee, will need to be replaced every few years, costing hundreds of thousands of pounds over her lifetime.
He still suffers from disabling pain and fatigue after standing for long periods of time.
A second woman, Vicky Balch, from Lancashire, was also forced to undergo a leg amputation following the accident.
What happened during the Alton Towers Smiler accident?
On 2 June 2015, visitors were removed from Alton Towers’ Smiler attraction after a warning light indicated a fault.
Staff sent a test train around the track, but it failed to turn around. Due to a communication failure, the staff did not realize that this car was still on the track.
Passengers were allowed to get back on, but when the first car turned around, the computer system stopped it because it showed that something was blocking the track.
Engineers were still unaware that there was a fifth car on the track and overrode a fault that had been detected by the computer system, causing the vehicle to crash into an empty car with the force of a “90-degree car accident.” mph”.
At least 16 people were injured and five people were seriously injured.
Leah Washington from Barnsley, South Yorkshire, and Vicky Balch from Leyland, Lancashire, were forced to undergo leg amputations as a result of the horror accident.
The Smiler in Alton Park, where 16 people were injured in a collision in 2015 (file image). An investigation found that staff had overridden a computer block that stopped the trip due to a stopped car on the track, causing the accident.
Joe Pugh, also from Barnsley, and Daniel Thorpe, 28, from Buxton, Derbyshire, also suffered serious leg injuries, along with Chandaben Chauhan, 49.
Trapped attendees had to wait more than four hours to be freed from the crumpled carriage as rescuers struggled to reach them as they sat 25 feet high in the air at an angle of about 45 degrees, immobilized by the shattered metal.
