Tia Lockey, 22, from Durham, has been left with no feeling in her face after shattering her jaw in a motorbike accident while on holiday. The crash happened at the start of her dream trip through Asia, leaving her with scars, missing teeth, and permanent nerve damage.
Dream trip turns to nightmare
Tia was at the beginning of her journey when she volunteered to go first down to a remote beach on Koh Tao, Thailand. She waved goodbye to her friends and set off with a fellow traveller who offered to take them down one by one, a ride that would only take 10 minutes.
She can only remember the first few minutes of the journey before waking up on the jungle floor, concussed and in agonising pain. “My dream trip I had been planning for years had been stripped away from me because of a lift to the beach,” said Tia.
“I opened my eyes and I was on the floor in the jungle of Koh Tao, in the middle of nowhere covered in blood. I didn’t and still don’t remember the crash at all; it's completely wiped from my memory. I definitely mourn the life I used to have.”
Emergency rescue and surgery
The marketing worker had organised the trip to the beach in the early hours of March 14. A friend, who had a bad feeling when the driver did not return, followed Tia's live location and found her with her injuries. An ambulance took her to hospital, where doctors discovered she had shattered her jaw in two places, knocked out two teeth, and suffered deep wounds to her face. She was emergency speed-boated to a hospital in Koh Samui, around three hours away.
For the next two weeks, Tia was bedridden with her mouth wired shut following jaw surgery. She then returned to the UK for another operation in May. “They described it as cornflake bits,” she said. “When I woke up from the eight hour surgery my teeth and bite were completely different. They no longer touched at the front, so I was left with an open bite and they said that this will just be my teeth from now on and there’s not a lot they can do to fix them.”
Life-changing injuries and recovery
The crash left Tia with crippling insecurities that stopped her from leaving the house, as well as nerve damage that left her bottom lip and chin completely numb. “I struggled a lot with going out and about with friends and family because I was so insecure about my teeth and scars,” she said.
“My sisters have to give me a heads up when we’re out. I’m still being seen by the hospital for regular appointments and I still have missing teeth. I am hoping to finally have them fixed by the end of the year.”
Six months on, Tia has started to adjust to the changes and has found new purpose by documenting her recovery on TikTok. “It has also made me realise just how precious life is and never to take a single day for granted,” she said. “I just hope it reminds people to stay safe, even when you feel invincible, because you never think it will happen to you until it does, and unfortunately I’m still paying the price for it.”
