Sydney burns survivor Sophie Delezio announces her engagement

The miracle survivor stole hearts as a brave toddler seriously injured when a car crashed into her Sydney daycare centre. And now she is getting married.

Sophie Delezio has announced she is engaged to her high school best friend turned lover Joseph Salerno.

In a new and exclusive interview with The Australian Women’s Weekly, Ms Delezio, 22, revealed that Mr Salerno, 23, popped the question to her on Valentine’s Day this year.

“I had no idea (he was going to propose),” Ms Delezio told the magazine.

The pair first met at a swimming class when they were around six years old but it wasn’t until they were aged 14 and formally introduced at high school they became “best friends”.

Many years later, a romance blossomed.

Ms Delezio captured the nation’s hearts as a two year old when she was severely injured after becoming trapped under a burning car that had crashed through the window of her Sydney childcare centre in 2003.

Joseph Salerno proposed to Sophie Delezio on Valentine’s Day. Picture: Instagram

The 22-year-old spoke at length about how much her life has changed.

Sophie Delezio pictured one year into her recovery from the first accident.

She miraculously survived the tragedy but suffered burns to 85 per cent of her body and lost both her feet, some fingers and her right ear.

The nation rallied behind her as she endured a long and difficult road to recovery, often with a big, sunny smile on her face.

Then in 2006 the unimaginable happened.

Ms Delezio was hit by a car near her home in Sydney’s northern beaches as her nanny pushed her wheelchair across a pedestrian crossing. The impact sent her flying 18 metres out of her chair.

She sustained a broken jaw, broken collarbone, nine broken ribs, punctured lungs, two fractured vertebrae and a brain injury. She also suffered a heart attack and was in such a dire condition it was not known if she would live - with doctors telling her family that no one with the extent of her injuries had ever pulled through. Her parents were twice given the option to turn off their little girl’s life support at Sydney Children’s Hospital in Randwick during her first week there. But they never considered that as an option.

And, once again, Ms Delezio soon went on to defy the odds and slowly made another remarkable recovery.

Just a month later she was released from hospital and had returned to school by July that year.

Since then, she has continued to undergo multiple surgeries - estimating a total of more than 100 - and simultaneously kick life goals.

After travelling to the other side of the world solo to fulfil her dream of studying sociology and international relations at a London university, Ms Delezio returned to Sydney as Covid swept the globe in 2020, and quickly rekindled her romance with Mr Salerno.

Sophie Delezio returned to Sydney in 2020 after studying at a university in London.

The happy couple have been “best friends” since they were 14 years old. Picture: Instagram

The couple spent 10 months travelling to 26 countries together last year. The venture only proved to strengthen their bond and ultimately led them to realise they wanted to be together forever, according to Ms Delezio.

It was those experiences Mr Salerno drew on to concoct a heartwarming and sentimental proposal which started with him giving her a handmade scrapbook that he had filled with highlights of their relationship and travels. The last page included a photograph of her engagement ring.

“She turned to me and I was down on one knee bawling,” Mr Salerno told the publication.

“Our go-to song is Be My baby so I just asked if Sophie would be my baby and luckily she ticked the box on the back of the scrapbook that said yes.”

Ms Delezio told the Australian Women’s Weekly she was grateful the couple started with a platonic friendship because they “needed to grow separately before (they) could come together”.

“We both had our independence and experienced different relationships, which was nice, but still found each other again, she said.

Her spirit of never letting the accidents define her, or prevent her from living her best life, is a big part of what captured the hearts of Australians when she was just a toddler - but what is equally as remarkable is that it still shines just as bright 20 years on.

“In my mind I’m not ‘Sophie the girl with no legs’ but someone completely normal. I think of myself as Sophie the chatterbox, the socialite, the girl who loves a good hamburger and enjoys each day as much as she can,” she previously told Now To Love.

The May issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly is out now.