Devizes belly dancer triumphs over tragedy (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Devizes belly dancer triumphs over tragedy

9:36am Thursday 10th September 2009

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Former world belly dancing champion Tracey Jones, who two years ago lost a leg in a horrific road crash, has not only fought back to fitness but has found a new partner and had their son.

Ms Jones, 40, of Walden Lodge Close, Devizes, was riding to her former home in Bristol on June 22 2007 when her Yamaha 535cc motorbike was in collision with a car at Bromham.

She remembered: “There was an elderly driver on his way to market in Devizes. He started to pull out but then stopped so I thought he had seen me and I swerved round him.

“In fact, he hadn’t seen me. He had just stalled and when he started the car in gear he lurched into me.

“I was conscious through the whole thing. I remember thinking as I flew through the air, I wonder how bad this is going to be.

“I landed and immediately looked round for my bike. I tried to get up but realised I couldn’t.”

Fortunately, a police patrol car was passing and Ms Jones was airlifted to the Royal United Hospital in Bath. When she came round from the anaesthetic she realised her dancing days could be over.

She said: “They had taken off my left leg below the knee. They said my foot was so badly injured it was the only thing they could do.”

Such a disaster for a dancer could have spelt the end, but three weeks earlier she had met the love of her life.

Ms Jones said: “I had been booked to dance at the Southgate Inn in Devizes and I had got lost. I asked two blokes if they knew the way and they said they were going there themselves.”

One of the two men was Neil Little and the couple hit it off straight away. She said: “Neil is the love of my life and he has stood by me.”

Ms Jones received her first prosthetic limb in September 2007 and a month later found out she was pregnant with their first child, Joshua, who is just over one year old now.

Ms Jones, who was crowned world champion in 2006, has two daughters from her first marriage, whom she sees regularly.

Now she feels ready to take up her career again. She begins a course in Arabic dancing at St John’s parish room in Long Street on Thursday September 17 at 7.15pm. For details call (01380) 721763.

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