British Tourist Loses Finger in Quad Bike Accident During Marrakech Birthday Trip

A birthday that will mark her for life. Lucy-Lou Merner, owner of a beauty salon, her husband Daniel, 41, and four of her children aged 15, 14, nine and eight, left for Marrakech on April 27 to spend a week of vacation there. Vacations during which she had planned to celebrate her 40th birthday. On April 29, her children, as well as her husband, begged her to go on an adventure in a quad in the Agafay desert, while she would have preferred to relax by the pool. "I finally agreed thinking it would be on sand dunes, but it was rocky like a quarry. When the engine started, I couldn’t maneuver it at all - and I was terrified because my youngest daughter was sitting behind me," she tells WalesOnline.

She also said she had already decided to get off the quad the next time they stopped, but suddenly she was rushing towards a huge rock. "I saw this rock coming and I didn’t want to go over it, so I tried to get away," she continues. In the process, she turns to the left, loses control of the quad, and lands in a ditch with the quad on top of her. "Suddenly I was on the ground and the quad landed on me and I just remember screaming. When my husband said, ’Oh my God, your finger,’ I knew it was hanging without even looking. Lucy-Lou had just had her index finger cut off.

She was admitted to the hospital with a cardigan wrapped around her arm as a makeshift tourniquet to stop the bleeding. A Moroccan surgeon temporarily reattached the finger to stem the blood flow. The family had to cut short their vacation. Once back in the UK, Lucy-Lou was admitted to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. A hand specialist removed the finger on April 30. The forty-year-old underwent another surgery a few days later due to an infection. Doctors also moved her thumb towards her fingers to fill the space where her index finger used to be.

After her last surgery, Lucy-Lou returned home to Milton Keynes on May 10 to reunite with her family. She is not completely healed. The hairdresser has not been able to resume a normal life. It is difficult for her to take care of her clients. "For now, I can’t move my middle finger properly, so I can’t do eyelashes, tanning, charges or anything else I normally do."