Christmas will be a joyous occasion for most Queenslanders, but for Jennifer Young the holidays bring back traumatic memories of watching her soulmate die next to her in the wreckage of her car.
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It took just a few seconds of distraction from a fellow driver to change Mrs Young's life and take away her 53-year-old husband Edward, on the day of her 59th birthday and just after the couple's 30th wedding anniversary.
In 1983, Mrs Young lost her first husband, who was father to two of their children, she then married Mr Young and had a third child with her second husband.
"It takes a very special person to raise someone else's children as his own and he ... was a great dad to both of them and also to our own daughter," Mrs Young wrote in her victim impact statement after the crash.
"Ed was the centre of our family unit, if our children needed advice about anything they would always ring dad."
"He had a huge heart and helped anyone he thought was in need. His smile would light up the room, he liked to have a joke and he had a great sense of humour."
On December 23, 2015 Mr and Mrs Young were driving from Toowoomba to Yeppoon to visit their son for Christmas.
They were 20 kilometres outside of Gin Gin, near Bundaberg on the Bruce Highway when they began negotiating a bend.
Coming in the opposite direction was 63-year-old Gladstone woman Susan Zielke, who was reaching down for a water bottle as she came around the corner causing her vehicle to drift into Mrs Young's lane.
The two cars collided head-on, sending them both spinning off the road, the last memory Mrs Young has is seeing Ms Zielke's car crossing onto the wrong side of the road and her husband gasping.
Mrs Young regained consciousness in the wreckage of her car, with a broken sternum, broken ribs as well as cut and bruises.
As she turned to her husband in the passenger seat, she could see him struggling for breath, staring into space and unresponsive.
A passing motorist stopped to help, wrenched the driver's door open and freeed Mrs Young, but it was another five hours before her husband was pulled from the wreckage, by which time he had died.
"The realisation I no longer have my husband to support me and make decisions with is overwhelming," Mrs Young wrote in her statement.
"I find it the most difficult at night time, my best mate is not there to have dinner with me, watch television, talk to me, cuddle me or sleep with me.
"Now for me every birthday and Christmas will be a reminder to me of this terrible day and tragic circumstances in which Ed was taken from me."
One year on, Mrs Young is still recovering from the crash and while her physical injuries may have healed, she said the mental scars will not go away.
She said the subsequent legal proceedings were particularly distressing.
"It was really difficult because it just dragged out," she said.
"It was pretty traumatic for myself and my children ... we had to submit victim impact statements to the judge."
On November 22, Ms Zielke pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death and was sentenced to two years in jail, suspended after serving six months.
As Christmas comes around a year later, Mrs Young will be joined by her three children and six grandchildren at her Toowoomba home.
"We plan to try and get through the day as best we can ... and try to remember Ed and who he was," she said.
Despite her traumatic experiences, Mrs Young hopes her story will encourage everyone to be safe on the roads this Christmas.
"I hope it makes everyone aware and more conscious," she said.
"I hope and pray that everyone's safe on the road and doesn't speed, do drugs, drink alcohol and above all else, doesn't become distracted."
Shine Lawyers general manager Peter Gibson has seen first-hand the impact of road trauma as a transport law expert.
"Every life lost on the roads is a tragedy and one that not only destroys the life of the victim, but also the families who experience loss, grief and financial burden as a result of negligence on the road," he said.
"As a father, a road-user, and as a solicitor, hearing the annual road toll is devastating."
The law firm compiled interactive maps of the Queensland road fatalities and injuries from 2012 to 2013 as well as the December road toll from 2009-2013.
Mr Gibson said he has seen families similar to Mrs Young's come to Shine Lawyers all too often after tragic accidents.
"We're seeing broken families come through our doors too regularly; people who've lost loved ones and people whose lives have been irrevocably changed by the disasters we see on the road."
"There is one constant in all the cases we see … the injury could have been prevented if people observed the road rules and remembered that on the other side of the road is a human whose life isn't just important to him or herself, but whose life matters to an entire family."
