A1 accident victim was '˜a remarkable lady' says son

Muriel Wing, 65, an auxilliary nurse at Craigavon Hospital died after her silver Volkswagen Passat car was in collision with a coach on the A1 dual carriageway around 8am on Friday morning.

Muriel had left her Diamond Road home, which she had just moved into weeks ago, and was driving along the A1 towards Belfast for a training course on the Lisburn Road when the accident happened.

Her son Martin Johnston, said the news came to the entire family like a ‘bolt out of the blue.’

“Mummy was not some wee woman who did not know what she was doing,” her son Martin said. “She was a very careful, steady driver who always had her wits about her. She would have always told us ‘it is better to be late than not at all.’

“She was so full of life and energy that you would think she would live forever. She was 65 but had no plans to retire. She loved life too much. Mummy was a remarkable lady.

“She had incredible energy and a real workaholic. We all adored her. We are all devastated by this, especially her husband Malcolm.”

Martin said the family wanted to clarify a few things that had been reported.

“Looking at the photographs that were published in the newspapers you would think that mummy had come out of the slip road near the Maze,” said Martin. “That is simply not the case. Why would she be going that way?

“She was travelling along the A1 from Dromore, and was alone in the car.”

Martin said that his brother who lives in Malaysia had flown over to be at the funeral.

He had read on-line that Muriel had been travelling in a car with three other passengers when the accident occured.

“My brother John thought that it was my three young daughters and we were hiding this information from him,” Martin said. “The people who were injured came from the bus not from my mum’s car.

“She was travelling alone. To read and hear these things was very distressing.

“My mother’s body was left in the car and not moved until later that afternoon. That too was distressing for us to hear.

“I know the police may have had their reasons. If she had been injured she would have been taken away swiftly.

“There were suggestions that my mum had been in a previous accident along the A1 with a bus before. That again is totally not true.”

Martin said the family are still trying to come to terms with what has happened.

“We are all devastated by what has happened but we are all baffled too as to how the accident happened,” he said.

Police officers would like to hear from anyone who was travelling south bound along the A1 at around 8am on Friday and from drivers or pedestrians on the flyover bridge at Hillsborough who witnessed the collision.

Muriel, formerly of Skeogh, is survived by her husband Malcolm, sons Martin and John and step-sons Stephen and Andrew.

Her funeral will be held at Banbridge Road Presbyterian Church, Dromore today (Tuesday) at 2pm followed by interment in the adjoining burial ground.