A Suffolk woman who almost died in a horror crash which left her with post-traumatic stress disorder has told how she got back on her feet and built her own business from scratch.
Cherry Allen, 39 and from Sudbury, has started a campaign called The Time is Now to help other women “step out of the shadows” and gain the confidence to excel in their careers.
“My message is if we want equality and if we want women to have leadership roles we need to do it now and push for it,” said Cherry, who has two daughters, Natalie, seven, Jovie, five, with husband John.
“If we want change then let’s go for it now and it’s about encouraging women to make changes and step out of the shadows.”
Cherry runs a HR company - Cherry Allen Ltd - helping businesses to succeed, and she also leads management and development workshops, with a focus on women’s empowerment.
“I started it from nothing on a page and I took it from there,” she said. “To go limited last year on a nice turnover has been a great journey. I do it all part-time around the children. That’s been really nice to do.”
However, it’s a journey which had rough beginnings.
In December 2005 Cherry was travelling in the back seat of a car driven by her sister, Hazel, with John in the front passenger seat, when it was in a collision with a tractor at 60mph at the Hadleigh bypass heading into Ipswich.
The next thing Cherry remembers is being pulled out of the car, which was on fire, by members of the public and then lying “freezing” and “shivering” on a grass verge.
Cherry’s bowel had perforated in two places and she had to undergo an emergency operation.
Later complications in her condition, including contracting a “super bug” and septicaemia, meant Cherry was in hospital for a month, and at one point her family was told she may not make it.
On New Year’s Day, Cherry’s then-boyfriend John got down on one knee beside her hospital bed and asked her to marry him.
Although she physically made a full recovery, Cherry still bears mental scars from the ordeal.
“I was diagnosed with PTSD and depression because it all just started catching up with me,” Cherry said.
“The trauma came from my time in hospital. I was in intensive care for a week, where people are either dying or leaving in a very severe condition.
“I picked myself up from there and I decided I wanted to start a business, but I had my children first.”
Despite battling postnatal depression after both births, Cherry never lost sight of her ambition.
When Jovie was 18 months old, Cherry took the first steps towards establishing her company, and she now has clients across Suffolk, Essex, Norfolk and London.
Speaking of the car crash, Cherry said: “It’s made me driven. You get that sense of life is too short.
“You come out of it and think you will save the world but that does fade. Probably everyone who has been through a life or death experience will say that.
“But it gives you strength and bravery to try things. There’s not much which is out of my comfort zone now I have been through that.”
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