Crash victim Tahlia Mardini’s plea for speeding drivers over Christmas holidays

After suffering permanent brain damage and losing her best friend at the hands of a speeding driver, a young woman has renewed her plea for motorists to think twice before getting behind the wheel.

Tahlia Mardini was in a coma for two months following the 2018 crash.

After suffering permanent brain damage and losing her best friend at the hands of a speeding driver, one 22-year-old’s journey of learning to walk and talk again has ignited her plea for drivers to think twice before getting behind the wheel.

Tahlia Mardini caught a lift with her best friend Tegan Galea-Elson from a man they barely knew hours before midnight on New Year’s Eve in 2018 when tragedy struck at Yagoona.

The driver wove through traffic at a dangerous speed before he ploughed into the back of a parked ute with such force the ute slammed into a power pole 10 metres down the road.

Mardini, who was sitting in the back seat, was in a coma for two months and underwent 25 surgeries to reconstruct her head and neck, while Tegan died at the scene.

“I broke my jaw, neck, nose, cheekbone and my eye socket in my left eye got pushed back into my head so I got nerve damage, so I can only see 40 per cent out of my left eye,” she said.

Tahlia Mardini had to learn to walk and talk again after the crash.

“I had to learn to walk and talk again but I couldn’t remember anything … it was really hard.”

The Blakehurst social worker said she suffered from post traumatic amnesia, could not remember any of the crash and did not know her best friend had died until months later.

“They had her funeral and no one told me of Tegan passing until they knew my post traumatic amnesia had worn off and I would remember,” she said.

“I would ask my mum every day where she (Teagan) was and she’d say ‘Tegan was at work’ until one day I said ‘wait, you said that yesterday’.”

She said the day Teagan’s parents visited her in hospital was one of the hardest moment’s of her life.

Tegan Galea-Elson and Tahlia Mardini.

Tahlia Mardini is urging drivers to think twice before getting behind the wheel.

“Teagan’s mum ran to me and cried and I knew something was wrong, that Tegan wasn’t here anymore,” she said.

“It broke my heart, she was my best friend and she was a lovely girl … no parent deserves to go through that.”

According to the latest statistics, speeding drivers were responsible for 41 per cent of deaths and 24 per cent of serious injuries on NSW roads.

Forty-five per cent of all young Australian deaths are due to road traffic crashes and those killed, or responsible for their deaths, are aged between 17 and 29.

Mardini said the recent crashes across southwest Sydney – including the Heckenberg crash which took the lives of the Kaufmann siblings – was the reason behind her plea for drivers to stop speeding over the festive season.

Tegan Galea-Elson and Tahlia Mardini.

“It breaks my heart for the family because it’s the driver’s actions on the road that always ends badly for the innocent passengers,” she said.

“The holidays are the most dangerous time to be on the road … drivers need to think before they jump in the car that there is a family waiting at home for you and the people you’re driving.”

“I had the right to say something and I should have and it could have been the stop to something that ended so differently.”

Her plea comes as Canterbury-Bankstown Mayor Bilal El-Hayek agreed at a recent council meeting to write to NSW Premier Chris Minns to review policies and strategies to tackle the alarming deaths and driving behaviours of young people.

He has also called on the Premier to consider introducing tougher penalties including reducing demerit points before loss of licence, introducing double demerits permanently, and increasing police patrols and visibility.