Grace Clifford: The Road to Recovery

From a motorway crash to a match-winning return, Loughborough Lightning’s Grace Clifford talks about recovery from a life-threatening accident.

In January 2024, Grace Clifford was heading to an England U20s camp with three close teammates, Lia Green, Molly Luthayi and Becky Boyd. They’d made that journey countless times before, but in a single moment, everything changed.

“It all happened in a split second,” Grace says. “The sound when we got hit - I’ll never forget it. Like metal on metal, or a roller coaster screeching.”

The impact of the crash sent the car spinning into the central reservation. In the moments after the impact, Clifford stayed conscious and alert, terrified.

“I remember looking to my left and thinking, if the first impact didn’t kill us, the oncoming traffic might. That was the scariest moment for me.”

The four girls in the car were all injured. One had a fractured and crushed pelvis, another had broken bones in her back, and the third suffered a serious concussion. Grace was still stuck in the car, unable to move, suffering with a dislocated hip and crushed pelvis.

Emergency services considered cutting Grace out of the car to set her free, but they eventually managed to remove seats to ease her onto a stretcher.

“I was so cold they couldn’t even find a vein to give me morphine. One of them joked they might have to just jab me.”

She was separated from her teammates at the hospital. But support arrived quickly, from family, club, and country.

“I didn’t even realise at first that it was a serious injury. But when Nathan Smith and Sarah Hunter came to the hospital, it really hit me. They didn’t say anything revolutionary; they just turned up. It made everything feel okay.”

From there, began the long, painful journey back. But the support from people around her was what kept Clifford going strong during her recovery.

“I always say I had a big village. Lightning, England, my family, my friends. From physios to psychologists, nutritionists to teammates who offered lifts and cooked meals, they carried me through it.”

Recovery took a long time and wasn’t an easy journey. A second surgery was needed to remove floating bone from her hip.

“The surgeon described it like a bomb going off in my hip. I just remember thinking; I can’t do this again.”

The end of the long recovery period felt near, until a freak accident occurred during routine testing. A year to the day of the crash, she broke her ankle, and a third surgery followed.

“That was the darkest time. I remember crying, throwing stools around the house. And my mum just looked at me and said, ‘Okay, then don’t do it.’ And that flipped something in me. I chose to keep going.”

After a year of rehab, three surgeries, and multiple setbacks, Grace Clifford returned to the field for an England U20s game against Scotland.

“Seeing my name on the team sheet was when it became real. I was shaking right up until the first whistle blew, which is when I thought: it’s just rugby, it’s what I do.

“When I scored, the girls literally lifted me off the ground. And to do it with Lia, Molly, and Becky there, was a full-circle moment.”

Clifford’s return made her realise what’s possible for her future in rugby. Watching her Lightning teammates win a World Cup only furthered that drive for her to get to that level.

“Women like Sadia Kabeya really show us what’s possible. When we crashed, the whole squad wore bows for us and put our names on the team sheet. To know that World Cup winners did that for me? That tells you who they are, not just as players, but as people.

“I’ve had a year to get stronger, be rebuilt - literally. I’m surgically enhanced now,” she laughs. “I survived being hit by a van at 70 miles an hour. I can definitely take on France.

“The accident could’ve ended my career. But I wouldn’t change it. I needed that part of my journey to show me what I’m capable of. There’s nothing I can’t come back from now.”