THE mother of a teenager seriously injured in a triple fatal road crash in Australia has flown out to be at her bedside.

Tania Sheil, 19, suffered a broken pelvis and arm, when the mini-bus she was travelling in crashed head-on with another vehicle. But three of her friends died in the smash.

Her mother Theresa Shiel, a programme co-ordinator at the University of Kent, is now with her at the hospital in Brisbane where she is being treated.

Tania, of Forty Acres Road, Canterbury, was on a backpacking working holiday in Queensland with her boyfriend Will Wellard from Blean.

She had been returning in the mini-bus to a hostel in Bundaberg with a group who had been working on a fruit farm when the accident happened.

But Will, 20, a former student of Simon Langton Boys’ School and the UKC, was working on another farm and not in the vehicle.

He and Tania met at Sainsbury’s in Canterbury, where they both worked part-time, and embarked on the trip of a lifetime together earlier this year.

Tania is a former pupil of Archbishop’s School who was taking a time out from her art degree studies at the former Kent Institute of Art and Design.

Her brother, Ryan, 18, who is studying at Christ Church University, said: "She doesn’t remember anything about the accident and it was fortunate that she was apparently thrown out of the back window of the vehicle.

"Obviously, she still has some very serious injuries but she knows she is lucky to be alive.

"She was having a great time travelling and working in Australia with Will and it has been a terrible tragedy.

"The doctors say she will have to spend at least six weeks in hospital and it is obviously going to be some time before she is fully fit again.

She and Will had planned to stay out there until Christmas, but we are not sure when she will come home now. Both mum and Will are with her and helping to keep her spirits up."

John Walker, who runs the hostel in Bundaberg said he had visited Tania and other injured members of the group in hospital.

"It has been a dreadful shock and we are still trying to come to terms with it," he said.

The three backbackers who died were from Germany and France. Six others, including Tania who was the only Briton involved, were injured in the crash.