It's hard to believe that anyone could have survived the crash which left this Harley Davidson a crumpled mass of distorted metal.

Its front wheel has sheered off, its handlebars are twisted and its engine shattered.

Dawn Banks can remember every moment of that awful crash.

She recalls her bike buckling "like a camel bending its knees" and then hurtling across the tarmac.

She could so easily have been killed outright. Her injuries were so severe her life hung precariously in the balance.

She was rushed to Frenchay Hospital from the M4.

There a team of three surgeons fought for 12 hours to save her life.

But her right leg was so badly injured that four days later doctors decided they had only one option – to amputate it just below the knee.

For Dawn, who is now 50, it marked the start of her toughest ever journey.

One that has already taken eight months and is still not over.

Dawn is trying to rebuild her life and learn how to walk again.

Yet she bears no malice towards the pensioner who caused the accident by driving the wrong way along the motorway.

She said: "I don't have any thoughts of ill will or malice towards him.

"I think he will have his own trauma of having to deal with it himself for me to bear him any ill will, and I need all my energy to remain positive and help myself heal."

Metal plates and 16 two-inch screws now hold her right thigh and shattered femur together.

She has spent six of the past eight months following the accident in hospital.

And despite everything her dream is to ride a motorcycle once again.

She has already been out on four runs, riding pillion with partner Steve Litson, 42, from Knowle.

And she has contacted a Nottingham-based bike designer so that she can have a specially-modified 1940s Harley Davidson Bobber, which would allow her to ride on her own.

She has had a lot of support from the biking community.

Celebrity biker Charley Boorman, famous for his long-distance journeys with actor Ewan McGregor, visited her in Frenchay and has promised to ride with her.

But she said it is Steve who has helped her the most.

She said: "Without Steve's help I would be a snivelling wreck.

"You couldn't ask for a better person. People talk about one in a million, but he is one in 100 million.

"He has been with me every step of the way, he pre-empts everything I need and do, and after all I have been through he makes my life easy.

"I just can't thank him enough."

After her crash she spent two months on a trauma and orthopaedic ward in Frenchay.

Today she splits her time between Steve's house in Wellgarth Walk, Knowle and her home in Chepstow.

Last week she was allowed to take her new prosthetic limb home for the first time.

"The foot had pink toes and looked so cute – it was my foot," she said.

"I am not even going to cover it with stockings, and am going to wear it like that.

"I didn't use that word 'stump' initially. When I was first wrapped up and in bandages I hadn't really thought about it.

"It was like a baby in swaddling clothes, and I would actually call it my baby. It was silly, but I was getting used to it.

"By wrapping it up and calling it a baby, I must have been psychologically endearing my new stump to myself."

She finally left hospital on New Year's Eve.

"I had to learn everything again, as I was in a wheelchair and my life had completely changed," added Dawn. "I was home, but it was not as I knew it.

"All the time I had been hankering to get home, but when I got there my life was turned upside down. Then it sank in that I was in a wheelchair and was disabled."

Dawn is now learning to walk again, practising twice a week on parallel bars.

Taking her first step was a huge achievement.

"I felt I was sort of walking again, and it was a lovely feeling," she said.

"It was a big first step for me, and was nice to know I can stand up like I have got two legs."

Sometimes the simple things still catch her out.

"When I cut my toenails and manicure them I do one foot and then automatically go to the other," added Dawn.

But from relatively early days after her accident she has looked to the future.

When asked in hospital what she wanted to achieve she said: "I told them I would like to be able to walk like I did before, to run and to dance.

"Steve's mum is having a birthday party in the summer and everyone has to learn to jive, so that was my goal.

"Now I realise I won't be able to do a lot of that, but I am still determined to do as much as I can."