With freshly washed hair, sunken teary eyes, and a bare face – she bravely faced the camera and shared her traumatic story.

Grief is a peculiar emotional and physical response.

When asked what grief meant to her, Lucy shrugged.

“It’s everything,” she said.

She’s processing the five stages of grief every day.

It is an exhausting process, taking its toll.

“First I don’t believe it. Next minute I’m angry. Then I’m crying my eyes out,” Lucy said.

“Then accepting it. Like, yep, Zachary is dead.

“Then back to anger because he shouldn’t be dead.

“Every second of every single day it’s pretty much all of the feelings … it’s a huge rollercoaster … I’m getting whiplash from getting thrown back and forth between different emotional states.

“I can’t imagine it ending,” Lucy said.

Police investigate ‘freak accident’

The police Forensic Crash Unit is still investigating the fatal traffic crash that killed Zachary David Wilson, at Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast on Friday, October 4. No charges have been laid.

He was working as team leader for a landscaping company that subcontracted to Sunshine Coast Regional Council.

Sunshine Coast Forensic Crash Unit investigator Evan Condon said an initial police investigation indicated about 11.35am, a ute towing a caravan was travelling north on Brisbane Rd when it veered into oncoming traffic and struck five vehicles, including a parked car, which was pushed into Mr Wilson.

“Due to the impact, the vehicle has careered into the parked cars and the parked cars were pushed onto the gentleman working,” he said.

A Queensland Ambulance Service spokesman said the man driver of the dual cab towing the caravan suffered a medical episode.

He and his female passenger were taken to hospital in stable conditions.

Zachary was rushed to the Sunshine Coast University Hospital. He was effectively brain dead, but his heart held on.

He was later taken to the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital where his life support was turned off on Monday, October 7.

Zachary was reportedly standing 250m away from the road where the crash occurred and following all workplace health and safety procedures.

Day of crash, Friday, October 4

Lucy started her day like any other day.

“We were messaging before he started work,” she said.

Zachary had put through an online grocery shop order from his phone.

“I had to go and pick it up, which is what I would usually do,” Lucy said.

“I sent him a message saying ‘hey just let them know I’m on my way’.

“There’s usually a follow up message … but I got there and I’m waiting and waiting and didn’t get a reply.”

Noting it was unusual not to hear from him, Lucy tried calling, but there was no answer.

“It was around 11/11.30 which was the time of his accident looking back,” she said.

Lucy told staff her partner wasn’t replying and picked up the groceries he had ordered for the week ahead. Food neither of them would ever eat.

“On the drive home I was getting a call from an unknown number,” she said.

“I figured if it was important they’d leave me a message.

“Then 13 minutes later I’m home with our groceries and I see it’s a message from his HR manager asking me to call.

“I call her back and was putting the pieces together.

“She told me Zach’s been in a serious accident with severe injuries.”

Shocked and through tears she unloaded the food and got a lift to the Sunshine Coast University Hospital with her sister.

“I called mum straight away screaming and crying … saying Zach’s been taken to the hospital … I don’t know what’s going on,” Lucy said.

Her mother, Jody Milward, had flown to Sydney that morning.

After the call she was urgently trying to get on a flight back to Queensland.

“I’d just sat down for lunch with a friend and the phone rings … Lucy was hysterical,” Mrs Milward said.

“I told her to go meet her dad at the hospital (he worked there in the emergency department).”

Bruce Milward was sent to the hospital family room to wait for his daughters.

“One of the first things dad said to me was ‘Lucy it’s a cat-1’ and in the hospital that means there’s nothing we can do,” Lucy said.

Lucy said the seriousness of the crash didn’t hit her until after Zachary’s first scans.

She asked if it was time to say goodbye. The doctor nodded at her.

“I was in such a state of shock,” she said.

“It didn’t make any sense … I was just talking to him a few hours ago.

“You still think there’s some kind of chance … just hoping.”

But Lucy was yanked back to reality when she saw him for the first time in Brisbane.

Lucy said Zach’s body was mostly unscathed apart from the odd scratch and a black eye.

“He looked like he was sleeping,” Mrs Milward said.

“But his heartbeat could have stopped at any minute.”

Turning off Zachary’s life support, Monday, October 7

Doctors pronounced Zachary brain dead.

His family, friends and loved ones were given the weekend to say their goodbyes before his life support was to be turned off on the Monday.

“The night before his life support was turned off the nurses were in there memory making, getting hand stamps and a lock of his hair, and you don’t fully appreciate that this time tomorrow he’s not going to be there,” Mrs Milward said.

“Then the grief just hits you.”

That Monday morning, Lucy laid her shaking body down on the hospital bed next to her brain dead fiance.

Her father pushed Zachary into the pre-surgery room before they took his organs for donation and turned his life support off.

“Dad was able to push me and Zach to the place where I said goodbye,” Lucy said through tears.

“Dad was supposed to walk me down the aisle but instead dad walked Zach to his death bed and me with him.

“As nice as it was that I could be in his arms he wasn’t there. He wasn’t holding me.

“To just be next to him at least was all so bittersweet … that’s the only place I’ve ever found comfort.”

Days spent conjuring up what her last words to Zach would be, and eventually Lucy realised nothing was more true than saying she loved him one final time.

“We love each other so much … there’s not enough words in the world that could even begin to express how much I loved him and he loved me,” she said.

“All I could say to him was ‘I love you so much’.

“There’s nothing else you can say in that moment.”

Five weeks on – living with grief

A heartbroken Lucy said she’s still unable to go back into their room.

The couple had been living in a self-contained unit out the back of her parents’ home at Little Mountain.

They were saving to buy a home and for their wedding.

Zachary proposed earlier this year on a family holiday.

Lucy had chosen her wedding dress and booked their wedding date at the Crocodile Lodge at Australia Zoo for May next year.

Instead they had Zachary’s wake there. A rhino was adopted in his honour.

“I’ve been spending pretty much everyday with my sister in her room and that’s where I’ve been staying,” Lucy said.

“If I’m not with my sister, I’m with family or friends.”

Five weeks on from the crash and Lucy said all she could stomach was plain crackers the occasional piece of cheese.

“I’m still not sleeping, not eating, not being able to do normal basic tasks to look after myself,” she said.

“The sobbing comes and goes.

“He’s dead.

“It’s not that he’s gone not that he’s away. He’s dead.

“It’s been five weeks now and it still doesn’t feel real.

“Yes I’ve adjusted to what lifestyle this is now without having him around but at the same time it doesn’t make any sense because he should still be here.”

Watching her daughter navigate such extreme grief has been incredibly hard for Mrs Milward.

“It’s like walking through everyday with a hot rock in your stomach,” she said.

“Your brain is trying to protect you in some way, your adrenaline is going, and you go that’s just a bad dream that’s not really happened and you feel so dissociated from it.

“You can be carrying on somewhat as normal as you used to be and then all of a sudden it just hits and you are just breaking down and you’re sobbing and you can’t believe this has happened and that Zach this amazing young man is just gone.”

Lucy said she’s reminded of Zachary everywhere she goes.

“Going to friends places … going to the shops … driving around … everywhere I go Zach should be there,” she said.

The Milward family still has dinner at their dining table every night where Zachary once joined them.

“His seat is still there,” Mrs Milward said.

“We’ve got his photo there where he sits.

“That’s the sacred chair. Nobody sits there.

“We used to plate up for six of us and just the other night I got six plates out again … but no there’s only five now.

“He was the perfect edition. He fitted in.”

Despite only being new to cooking, Zachary pulled his weight and could often be found studying the cookbooks.

His signature dish was a mean curried sausages.

To this day Lucy’s life still revolves around her grief. It’s inescapable. Returning to work and her life feels unreachable.

“I have so much anxiety everywhere I go … getting on the roads too,” she said.

“I need sleeping pills.

“I have not been in a bed by myself since the accident.

“I cannot be alone at all now. I have to have some activity or something planned out with friends or family every day.

“I can’t think too far into the future otherwise it’s going to just break my heart more than it already is. I’m taking it all one day at a time.”

Lucy and Zachary’s relationship

Lucy said she’d never forget her first love and knew she would carry this grief for the rest of her life.

She still wears her engagement ring.

“He was so sweet and so beautiful. As soon as I met him I knew he wasn’t like anybody else,” Lucy said.

“Very happy and confident to be himself.

“We had this little accent we used to talk to each other … I’ll never use it again.”

Mrs Milward said she was incredibly proud of her daughter and that they wanted her to have the time and space to process her grief.

“They only had three and a half years together and it was amazing,” she said.

“They were just perfect for each other.

“He had such a sweet and caring soul. He wasn’t afraid to tell anyone that he loved them. His best friends, Lucy, and us.

“He wasn’t embarrassed about his emotions. He was always saying how blessed and grateful he was to have us.

“We knew he was going to take great care of Lucy.

“Now he’s gone.

“I know how heartbroken he would be to see Lucy here without him.”

Call for change

Police said they understood the 67-year-old man driving the car towing the caravan had a known medical condition that caused the crash.

Mrs Milward said she thought there should be restrictions in place on the kind of cars those with medical conditions could drive.

“Driving is a privilege not a right when it comes to public safety concerns,” Mrs Milward said.

“We’re very angry.

“He had a known medical condition, which could cause him to pass out at the wheel.

“With the current legal system you can do that … that’s not good enough … that’s putting public safety at risk.

“Zach was 250m on the opposite side of the road behind a parked car, behind a tree, behind a hedge when this person had his episode and goes over the median strip. He somehow manages to miss every tree and pole along the way.

“People with known medical conditions, which can cause them to pass out behind the wheel should be restricted to what they can drive just as learners aren’t allowed to drive high-power cars.

“People say ‘oh man the driver must feel so bad’ but it is nothing compared to the grief and heartache.”

A spokesman for the state Department of Transport and Main Roads said they could not comment on individual incidents.

“In Queensland, it is a legal requirement that all drivers be medically fit to drive,” he said.

“A person must notify TMR if they have a long-term or permanent medical condition that is likely to adversely affect their ability to drive safely. Failure to notify TMR may result in a maximum court-imposed penalty of $9678 and the cancellation of the person’s driver’s licence.

“In Queensland, a person’s treating doctor plays a central role in determining a person’s medical fitness to drive, including whether restrictions or conditions need to apply.

“If a person is unsure about whether their medical condition is likely to adversely affect their ability to drive safely, they are encouraged to seek medical advice about their specific condition.

“A person’s health professional, or other third parties including Queensland Police Service (QPS), may also notify TMR about a person’s medical condition if it affects their ability to drive, however this is not a mandatory requirement.

“Health professionals are legally able to notify TMR about a person’s medical fitness to drive without breaching their duty of confidentiality to the patient.”

A spokeswoman for Queensland Police Minister Dan Purdie said he was aware of the circumstances around the tragic death of Zachary.

“Understandably, Zachary’s loved ones are seeking answers, however, it is inappropriate for the Police Minister to provide any commentary around the ongoing investigation,” she said.

A Queensland Police spokeswoman said police were unable to comment further but an investigation continued.