A PSYCHOLOGY student has revealed how an amazing turn of events and a personal tragedy have changed the course of her life.

After returning from a mercy mission to a Romanian orphanage 20-year-old Helen Smith has vowed to devote her studies from now on to specialised work on the rehabilitation of traumatised and abandoned children.

Helen, of Brittania Gardens, Stourport, joined the first visit to Romania by the Sarah Hampton Foundation which was set up in memory of a close friend who died in a road accident in May.

She was among five young people thrown from a car when it overturned after leaving the Stourbridge Road a few miles north of Kidderminster returning from a night out in Merry Hill.

Sarah, also 20, of Titton, Stourport, was killed instantly but Helen was the only other person seriously hurt in the incident. She spent a week in intensive care in hospital with injuries to her lungs, shoulder, pelvis and ribs.

Talking this week after returning from a week's work with the foundation in Romania, Helen said: "I was expecting the worst but I was still shocked. I was actually sick after visiting orphaned and abandoned children in one state hospital.

"I don't think it is possible to imagine what is going on there so you turn a blind eye. But having once seen it you cannot turn your back."

She described how, with a team of six foundation members, she had seen children aged eight to 10 less than half the size they should be, lying inert in cots and wearing nappies changed only once a day.

Many of the children she visited were clearly malnourished and suffering from lack of loving human contact and stimulation.

She saw a "play room" with not a soft toy in it and children with nothing to do but bang their heads on desks and on walls.

Helen, a Sheffield Hallam University student of psychology, said: "I have decided to change my subject option. I want to focus on the behaviour of children after rejection and study how the brain can be re-stimulated to give them a chance of a normal life."

"I went to Romania for the sake of Sarah who would have cared so much because she was everyone's friend. But I have come back now wanting to do this work for the children."

She revealed for the first time how her own personal suffering had toughened her resolve.

The accident that killed Sarah happened only a fortnight after Helen had undergone the last in a series of operations for serious injuries suffered in another car accident two years previously.

She said: "It was the first day I was really free of crutches and I was going out with Sarah to celebrate this because I had been in a wheelchair for a long time with skull, hip and leg injuries. It was also a "goodbye" before a holiday and after my last examination of the year."

Helen said she would be seeking business sponsorship this year to finance studies she plans in Romania next summer as part of her university course.