How Clare Balding’s Crufts co-host Sophie Morgan rebuilt her life after she was paralysed from the waist down in a devastating car crash aged 18 – and has taken the TV world by storm

Sophie Morgan says she has two birthdays. The first is the date she was born and the second is her A-level results day when, aged 18, she was paralysed from the waist down in a car crash, marking the start of a new chapter.

BAFTA-nominated TV presenter, writer, artist and disability activist are just some of the titles the 38-year-old from East Sussex now has under her belt, cementing herself as one of the UK’s leading faces on TV.

As one of the first female TV presenters in the world with a physical disability, Sophie has fought to provide representation for disabled people.

She is a panellist on Loose Women and is set to once again be the face of Channel 4’s Crufts coverage alongside Clare Balding, when the international dog competition kicks off in Birmingham tomorrow.

Here, FEMAIL looks at the incredible achievements of Sophie Morgan, from the devastating car crash that changed her life to her dynamic and inspirational TV career.

What happened to Sophie Morgan? 

Sophie was in a car accident while driving in Scotland with some friends, shortly after receiving her A-level results in 2003. 

She was the designated driver in a car with four passengers, on their way home from a party in Elgin in the small hours of the morning.

She over-steered round a corner, lost control, and the car ended up in a field, on its side, with Sophie trapped underneath.

‘I was a typical teenage driver – inexperienced, overconfident, cocky,’ she told MailOnline YOU Mag in 2016. 

‘And the environment in the car was pretty dangerous – drunk friends, loud music, like a party. I was overexcited and distracted.’

Her passengers – including her then boyfriend Sam – climbed out of a window without even a scratch.

However, Sophie sustained a fractured skull, a broken nose and collarbone, and a T6 (thoracic) spinal cord injury – she was left paralysed from the chest down.

After a week in intensive care and four months in hospital, including facial reconstruction and surgery to fuse her broken spine, she moved back in with her parents in Sussex. 

The presenter, 36, was left wheelchair bound after suffering a T6 spinal cord injury in 2003, resulting in paralysis from the chest down

Pictured: Sophie one month before the accident

Which TV shows has Sophie Morgan been on? 

Sophie first appeared on our screens just nine months after her accident, as she was taking part in the first series of Beyond Boundaries on BBC Two.

The show followed 11 disabled people on an expedition 220 miles across Nicaragua from its Atlantic coast to its Pacific coast.

Sadly, Sophie contracted amoebic dysentery in the jungle, meaning she was unable to complete the challenge.

Four years later in 2008, she appeared on BBC Three’s Britain’s Missing Top Model – a reality TV search for a disabled model. She finished as runner up to Kelly Knox.

In 2012, she then went on to model for Stella McCartney’s Adidas campaign, alongside 11 other women.

Which TV shows has Sophie Morgan presented?  

Sophie’s first presenting gig came in 2013 when she hosted BBC documentary License to Kill. 

Filmed and released in 2013, she looked at why traffic collisions are the single biggest killer of young people and how that can be stopped.

As one of the first female TV presenters in the world with a physical disability, Sophie has fought to provide representation for disabled people

Sophie is arguably best known for her work as a panellist on Loose Women

The London-based campaigner has undergone a host of impressive projects including presenting Channel 4’s TV coverage of the Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro. She is pictured with her fellow hosts in 2016

Following this, The World’s Worst Place to Be Disabled? saw the star travel to Ghana to uncover the horrifying reality of many disabled people who live there – chained up in prayer camps, exiled from villages for being cursed, forced on the streets and in some cases even killed.

Sophie’s career trajectory has continued to climb and she now has an impressive number of titles under her belt including Horizon, The One Show and Channel 4 News – as part of the No Go Britain series which examines accessibility and transport issues for disabled people.

Moving forward to 2018, the star co-hosted a series on Channel 4 called Best Laid Plans, alongside architectural designer Charlie Luxton.

In the programme, the pair came to the aid of homeowners whose domestic renovation projects had hit problems.

More recently, Sophie presented two seasons of her own show Living Wild: How to Change Your Life, where she travelled across the UK to meet those who have gone back to basics and rebuilt their lives the way they want it.

For the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Paralympics, Sophie was one of Channel 4’s lead sports presenters – something she is arguably best known for.

She also featured on The Superhuman Show with Alex Brooker and presented some coverage of the IPC Swimming European Championships.

As Sophie’s career took off she racked up an impressive list of shows she has reported for including Horizon, The One Show and Channel 4 News as part of the No Go Britain series which examines accessibility and transport issues for disabled people

Pictured: Sophie attending 10 Downing Street to hand in the RightsOnFlights petition

The presenter and activist, who boasts more than 100,000 followers on Instagram, will next be appearing on our screens again this week for Channel 4’s coverage of Crufts dog show

What is Sophie Morgan doing now? 

As of November 2021, Sophie is a regular rotating panellist on ITV’s Loose Women, where she is open and candid about the reality of being disabled.

On the show she has opened up about struggles she’s faced throughout her life – recently sharing her personal experience of domestic abuse in previous relationships.

Sophie talked about being left on the sofa or in the car, with her abuser taking her wheelchair away from her when they’d ‘had a row’. 

She went into detail about this issue in a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary she presented, called Trapped, Disabled & Abused (2022).

In the UK, disabled people are twice as likely to experience domestic abuse than non-disabled people, yet this abuse often goes under the radar – in the harrowing documentary the presenter examined why this is the case, and spoke to those who have experienced domestic abuse.

She has also spoken out regularly about her difficulties taking her wheelchair on flights, prompting her to create the ‘Rights on Flights’ campaign last year.

It came after bespoke wheelchair and electric-powered front-wheel BATEC system damaged beyond use on a journey between Los Angeles and London.

In the same year Dispatches hit our screens, Sophie also took the literary world by storm by releasing her memoir – Driving Forwards: A Journey of Resilience and Empowerment After Life-changing Injury

Sophie has previously admitted that people find it hard to understand her disability hasn’t ‘ruined her life’ 

She has also spoken out regularly about her difficulties taking her wheelchair on flights, prompting her to create the ‘Rights on Flights’ campaign last year

On Loose Women she talked about how airlines can make disabled people feel not valued by not taking the care that’s needed when it comes to equipment.

She recalled on the ITV daytime talk show how her wheelchair was ‘manhandled by airline staff’ and ‘in doing so broke it’.

In the same year Dispatches hit our screens, Sophie also took the literary world by storm by releasing her memoir – Driving Forwards: A Journey of Resilience and Empowerment After Life-changing Injury.

The powerful book details Sophie’s injury, her recovery, and her life since.

The star has previously admitted that people find it hard to understand her disability hasn’t ‘ruined her life’.

Appearing on Lorraine in 2021, she explained that while many people are ‘frightened of change’, she believes that her disability ‘made her life’ and has encouraged her to ‘live properly’. 

‘I think people are frightened of change, they don’t want it, there’s a fear around it, said Sophie. 

‘But for me, because my change ended up giving so many positives, I sort of lean into it, I seek it out. I want life to be different and to be full of variety and excitement.’

The presenter and activist, who boasts more than 100,000 followers on Instagram, is appearing on our screens again this week for Channel 4’s coverage of Crufts dog show.

She is hosting the main coverage of the highly anticipated canine competition alongside Clare Balding. 

The dog show began on Thursday March 7 and will conclude on Mother’s Day, Sunday March 10.