Milton Keynes mum loses finger in horrific holiday quad bike accident

Lucy-lou Merner reluctantly agreed to go on a quad bike ride with her husband and children during a Moroccan holiday booked to celebrate her 40th birthday.

But during the ride across the desert she swerved to avoid a rock and flipped the bike upside down, crushing her underneath it.

The accident severed her index finger and she had to undergo emergency surgery.

"I saw this rock coming up and I didn't want to go over it so I tried to steer around it,” she said. "Suddenly I was on the floor and the bike landed on top of me and I just remember screaming.

"When my husband said, 'Oh God, your finger', I knew it was hanging off without even looking.”

Lucy-lou, a beauty salon owner from Newport Pagnell, was rushed to hospital where doctors tried to re-attach her finger but prepared her for the worst, she said.

The family got emergency flights back to the UK the following day, cutting their holiday short, and visited a specialist at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.

Here, Lucy-lou underwent surgery to remove the finger on her left hand. During the operation the doctors also moved her thumb over to close the gap where her finger had once been.

“I've had three surgeries now but I'm still in constant pain and I've barely been out since,” she said.

Lucy-lou had jetted off with husband Daniel to spend a week in Marrakech with four of her children aged 15, 14, nine and eight.

Two days into the holiday the kids begged for a quad bike adventure in the Agafay desert. Lucy-lou says she would have preferred to lounge on the pool.

She said: "I agreed in the end thinking it would be on sand dunes, but it was rocky like a quarry.

"When the engine started, I couldn't steer it at all - and I was terrified because I had my youngest daughter sat on it behind me."

Luckily her daughter was thrown clear of the bike and was uninjured.

Though Lucy-lou is now on the road to recovery, she has been unable to return to normal life.

"I've built up clients at my salon for years and years but I don't know if I will ever be able to do treatments again. At the moment, I can't properly move my middle finger so I can't do people's eyelashes, tans, fillers or any of the things I normally do."

The mum now wants to warn others of the dangers of the common holiday activity - and to think twice before giving it a go.

She said: "People really put their guards down on holiday, and that was what I did - I don't know what possessed me to go on it.

"Since then I've found out how many accidents people can have on quad bikes. People assume it is just one of those fun things to do on holiday and don't realise how dangerous it can be."