Chris Newell can still remember it clearly, despite some memory complications from the crash.

The Lara 59-year-old and her husband Jack were on a day off from operating their small hygiene company, but needed to make a small delivery, so they decided to make an afternoon of it and grab some lunch.

It was about 11am on October 17, 2018 when they were driving down the Bell park section of Thompson Rd, with Chris in the passenger seat chatting to a client on her mobile.

“We were just talking social, and I was about to hang up and I just went to grab the phone,” Chris said, imitating herself turning to her side to look at the phone, “and I just went, ‘fuck, you’re not gonna stop’.”

That was the moment she saw the Honda Civic speeding down Armstrong St, heading directly for the side of the car she was sitting on.

“To me it was a huge steam train coming at me. It was slow motion.”

“’bang’, that was us spun and I just, this is where I get upset,” Chris says as her voice breaks. “I just saw my granddaughters head and I didn’t think I’d see her again.”

“And that vision stays with me all the time. All the time.

“I just saw her beautiful head, because she was a baby, and I didn’t think I’d see her again. I thought that was it. I said to myself, that’s it, I’m done.”

Jack recalls the force of the hatchback slamming into their car.

“I remember holding on and the G forces, it was like being in a plane,” he said.

Jack had tried to help Chris from the car, but the twisted metal on the passenger side of the car had jammed the door closed, and when Jack tried to reach her belt clip from the drivers side he discovered it was also jammed.

It took emergency services responders about 40 minutes to cut Chris from the wreckage.

“I was bleeding all here” Chris says, pointing a finger to the side of her face. “Because where I had the phone the airbag hit me. so I was bleeding there, my sunglasses smashed in my face, so I’ve got a bump on my nose now that will be there forever as a reminder.”

“I went into shock. I was hyperventilating and I could see blood everywhere.”

Once CFA and SES members had cut Chris from the car, paramedics rushed her to the Geelong hospital, where she’d receive treatment for injuries to her left hip and arm, chest, spine and face.

More than 12 months later Chris is still recovering. Hip replacement surgery was the most recent physical treatment, but the psychological scars from the crash have also been a persistent challenge.

“I’m just slowly starting to walk with the walking stick now. It was a full hip replacement,” she says.

“That’s been ongoing with physio, hydro, chiro, doctors, psychologist, pain killers – and I hate taking all of that rubbish.”

Chris’s long road to physical and mental recovery is not unique.

Over the past decade there have been 88 fatalities on the City of Greater Geelong’s extensive network of roads, Traffic Accident Commission data shows.

But in that time there have also been 2664 ‘claims involving hospitalisation’, serious injuries that see road users hospitalized for anywhere from a few hours to a number of months.

The figures show that for every fatality on Geelong’s roads over the past 10 years, there have been a further 30 people sent to hospital.

Geelong Superintendent Craig Gillard the rate of serious injury collisions in Geelong decreased by 30 per cent in 12 months.

“This is a tremendous result given the ever-increasing population in our region,” Supt Gillard said.

He said the number of penalty notices issued by police to offending drivers rose by 34 per cent in this time indicating that enforcement was leading to a reduction in road trauma.

Maurice Blackburn personal injury lawyer Rebecca Eagles, who has helped the Newell’s in seeking a compensation claim for their crash, said lives are turned upside down every day on Victorian roads.

“While we hear a lot about the road toll and the number of people killed on our roads, Chris represents one of the many people on the hidden toll of road trauma,” Ms Eagles said.

“For every one fatality on Victorian roads, there are approximately 26 people admitted to hospital because of road trauma and many of these people will need lifelong medical support and care. Their working lives, relationships and families are often irrevocably affected and the ripple effect in the community can be horrendous.

“Any measures that will help reduce deaths and injuries on Greater Geelong roads should be welcomed.”