A NORTH Yorkshire landlady says she wants to thank the pub regulars who rallied round her after an horrific car crash.

Janet Parkinson, who runs The Jolly Farmer Inn, at Leavening, near Norton, with husband, John, and daughter, Jackie, spent two weeks in hospital with serious injuries.

She said she was overwhelmed with cards, flowers and messages of support - as well as offers of help to staff the bar while she was away.

Janet's car smashed into a telegraph pole outside the village, leaving her with two fractured vertebrae, a broken neck, a damaged sternum, shoulder injury and severe bruising.

She also needed 18 stitches to a gash in the back of her head.

Despite such serious injuries, Janet said she was desperate to be out of hospital and back at home.

"I feel very achy, but I am getting there," she said today.

"I don't remember much about the crash, but from what I can gather I did manage to get out of the car myself, I don't know how."

Janet said the support she had received had helped her start the long recovery process.

"It's wonderful, I have nearly 100 cards and there have been flowers at every hospital I have been in.

"I was in York and then transferred to Leeds and then the Purey Cust, and they all said it was like being in a florists'.

"People have been wonderful with letters sent to the hospital from people I hardly know in the village, offering to pick up my grandchildren from school or work the odd night behind the bar.

"It really has been terrific."

Husband John said he wanted to add his thanks.

"The response we have got is amazing, it's been flipping fantastic. We want to thanks all the paramedics, the hospitals and especially all the people who have sent cards and flowers to us at the pub."

John said he was on the scene in ten minutes as paramedics helped his wife.

"The emergency services couldn't believe she was alive," he said.

"The car is a write-off, it was just a mess - I never want to see anything like it again.

"Something came out at her and she swerved and lost control of the car, whether it was a rabbit or a pheasant or even a deer, I don't know."

Updated: 10:33 Thursday, July 17, 2003