A SCHOOLGIRL left fighting for her life after being hit by a car in Kilwinning is on the road to recovery.

Tiffany Crawford was left with devastating injuries after being hit by a car on Dalry Road as she walked home from school on October 30.

The nine-year-old was left with a broken pelvis, broken ribs and her lungs, kidney and liver all ruptured following the horror accident.

She was airlifted to Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital where she was placed in an induced coma for three days while medics battled to save her.

Today the schoolgirl’s mum Caroline Gillespie spoke of her fear that her beautiful baby girl might not pull through and praised her strength and determination.

She said: “She has been amazing. She is so brave. When she first arrived at hospital it didn’t look good, but she is a fighter and, although she has a long road ahead of her, she has survived.”

Caroline says she had collected Tiffany and younger sister Tegan, five, from Abbey Primary as usual, on that fateful day.

Tiffany was walking along the road near to Kilwinning Academy at around 3.20pm with her friends when she decided to cross the road to go and play in McGavin Park.

Caroline said: “I was just a wee bit in front of her. She always walks through the lane with her friends and then comes with me, but this day she decided she wanted to go into McGavin Park and she has gone across the road and that’s when she got hit.

“Tiffany must not have seen the car and kept running and she was very seriously injured.

“I just heard a few people shouting me and I ran back to where she was. I didn’t realise it was that serious at first, then they said the helicopter was coming. I was in shock. I wasn’t allowed to go near her because when she saw me she was panicking and trying to get up to get to me.

“She remembers what happened because as soon as she woke up she said she knew why she was in hospital because she had been hit by a car and she was asking for her friends.”

Whilst emergency services battled to save Tiffany at the side of the road, medics advised Caroline to make her way up to Glasgow and meet her there.

She said: “We got there and Tiffany was just getting off the helicopter. The doctors and nurses were waiting to greet us and tell us how she was, it was amazing.

“They placed her in an induced coma and put her on the ventilator. Every time they tried to take the breathing tubes out, her lungs kept collapsing, so it was just a waiting game.”

Now two weeks after the accident, Tiffany has come off the ventilator and is in the recovery ward.

Caroline, who has been staying in Ronald McDonald House, said: “Because of her broken pelvis she will be in a wheelchair for a while, but she hasn’t been left with anything long term. They have said she will make a full recovery. She’s been very brave. I am so proud of her.”