Sammi talks about what happened to Rhys, Gemma and their children, and the support she received from her Brake caseworker. Warning: This film contains content that some viewers may find distressing.
Sammi Cousin grew up in a large, tight-knit family, so it’s no surprise she went on to have a big brood herself. Rhys was her first son and the middle of five children.
“Rhys was the fun one, the goofball of the family and he was always smiling. We used to dance all the time, and he would phone me every day,” Sammi says. “We had a fantastic relationship, and he had a great relationship with his sisters and brother – he always looked out for them.”
When Rhys was at college studying outdoor pursuits, he met Gemma and declared almost straight away that he wanted to marry her! True to his word, the pair were married in August 2015, and became parents to two little girls, Peyton and Heidi.
Thursday 20 February 2020 was just like any other day. “Everything was normal until I got a chap at the door at 12 o’clock at night,” Sammi explains. “My partner answered the door and as I got out of bed, I knew something had happened. Rhys worked in traffic management, and I always had that fear that something would happen to him while on a job.”
Two police officers came into the house and Sammi’s fears were confirmed – but the news she was given was even more devastating than she could have imagined.
Two police officers came into the house and Sammi’s fears were confirmed – but the news she was given was even more devastating than she could have imagined.
At around 5.30pm that day, having picked Rhys up from work, Gemma was driving along the A82 near Fort William in the Highlands of Scotland. Being rush hour, there was a lot of traffic, and it suddenly began raining heavily. As the car approached a bend in the road, it lost control and veered into the path of oncoming traffic. It collided with another vehicle, before crashing into a tree.
Rhys, Gemma and the girls all died at the scene. Rhys was 25, Gemma was 26. Peyton was three and Heidi was just a year old.
Rhys, 25, and Gemma, 26, were killed in the crash alongside their two daughters (pictured below).
The haze of grief
Sammi describes the next days and weeks as a blur. She had the unimaginably difficult task of going to the hospital to identify the bodies of her beloved son and young granddaughters.
“You could tell straight away what had happened to Rhys and Gemma,” Sammi painfully recalls. “The girls just looked like they were sleeping. It was surreal. I don’t know what happened after that; I don’t know where I went. It was a whirlwind.”
There was a short police investigation, which concluded that nobody was at fault and the crash was caused by bad weather conditions, so no fatal accident inquiry was needed.
Sammi was put in touch with Brake and assigned a caseworker. While she was in a grief-stricken daze, the family leaned on the caseworker for support. “It’s all a blur. I remember little bits. I remember he would phone, ask how I was doing, if there was anything I needed. If I had any questions, I just had to ask him,” Sammi says. “So, I do know Brake was there and the family kept them busy.”
The caseworker sent the family some copies of Brake’s book, Someone has died in a road crash, which they could use to explain to other children in the family what had happened. And with the ripple effect of the tragedy felt throughout the community, Sammi’s niece also found the book useful to talk to the little ones in the nursery where she worked when they had questions.
Peyton (left) was three and Heidi (right) was just a year old when they were killed in the devastating crash.
Giving back to Brake
In recognition of the support Brake provided to Sammi and her family, she wanted to do something momentous by way of giving back. She decided to sign up for a skydive, even managing to convince her daughter Vikki to join her.
“She is terrified of heights. I don’t do heights either, so it was a challenge for me too. The family all thought I was crazy!” Sammi comments. The pair took to the skies on a sunny August day in 2023 and raised more than £400 for Brake.
“Vikki went up before me and she said it was the best experience she’d ever had,” Sammi recalls. “It was an amazing experience; it was fantastic.”
It also gave Sammi something fun and constructive to focus on, bringing her joy amid the grief. Her community practice nurse remarked on the positive impact it had on her mental health. “He said to me, ‘When you did that skydive, you were in the moment [with] the buzz and the adrenaline, and it was fantastic to see’,” Sammi says. Now, she has the bug and is planning more adventures, including a bungee swing, with the family proudly supporting her along the way.
‘Nobody knows how it feels’
For Sammi, grief doesn’t get easier with time. “Does the pain lessen? No. To me, the pain seems to be sharper. As the years go on, it feels more intense,” Sammi explains. “I find it’s worse and more emotional every year. Anniversaries, birthdays, the milestones they would have reached… it’s hard because they should’ve been here.”
The impact of her grief hits Sammi in the mundane moments as well as the big occasions. Constantly on edge, she never switches off or silences her mobile phone, always anticipating that it will ring with more bad news. If one of her children doesn’t call when she expects them to, panic sets in.
“I wouldn’t say I’m out of that situation. I can have a laugh and a joke; however, that’s just a front. I don’t expect anybody to understand how it feels,” Sammi says, adding that this is where the expertise of Brake’s specialist caseworkers comes into its own.
“They’re not saying, ‘I know how you feel’, but they’re saying, ‘Let’s see if we can make this feeling a little less than it is right now’. Because there’s no getting over anything like this,” she concludes. “You learn to live with it, but you never ever get over it.”