Student's Car Crash Concussion Causes Temporary Loss of Welsh Language Fluency
A 19-year-old law student from Aberystwyth University experienced a profound and isolating consequence after a serious car crash: he temporarily lost his ability to speak Welsh, his fluent second language. Ellis Pears, originally from Cardiff, found himself feeling like a "foreigner" in his own university community following the November 2024 accident that left him concussed.
The Accident That Changed Everything
Ellis was driving his 2013 Ford KA on a muddy country road about five miles outside Aberystwyth when another vehicle came around a corner on the wrong side of the road. Faced with an oncoming 4×4, he chose to swerve, causing his car to lose control on the mud, spin multiple times, and ultimately flip over three times before being stopped by a fence post that wedged the vehicle into the ground.
"I remember it spinning and thinking 'Crap, this is out of my control' – there was nothing I could do," Ellis recalled of the terrifying moment. After climbing out through a window, he spent 20 minutes searching for his phone before using the what3words app to give emergency services his precise location – listed as "/
