Sophie Delezio - I'm Going To Spread My Wings

Sophie Delezio, the brave little girl who suffered burns to 85 per cent of her body when a car slammed into a daycare centre, has grown into a confident young woman about to leave home and travel overseas. She shares her quest for freedom with Michael Sheather.

- Michael Sheather

Sophie Delezio remembers the precise moment she fell in love with London. “Mum and I were walking through the centre of the city,” recalls Sophie, a pretty, spirited young woman about to turn 18. “I was 15 at the time and Mum and I went to London. It was the two of us, so it was a girls’ trip.

“We’d been to visit Kensington Gardens and were walking back. It came over all cloudy and drizzly, and then a freezing wind sprang up. I could feel the chilly air on my hands and face, and I remember thinking to myself, ‘I love this’. I love that feeling of having to rug up against the cold in winter woolies. It was like a winter wonderland – all the Christmas decorations, all the food, all the people. Everything about it held on to me and I instantly fell in love with it. Right then, decided that one day I would make London my home.”

Sophie, the little girl who won Australia’s heart with her bravery and endurance after a horrific car accident at a Sydney daycare centre in 2003, is about to turn that dream into a reality.

After completing high school last year, Sophie has applied for entrance to study sociology and international relations at no less than five top-ranking English universities, four of them in London. Her choices mean that she must now forge a new life for herself in a new city and country – half a world away from the comfortable and supportive upbringing that she experienced at her family’s home on Sydney’s North Shore.

“Yes, a part of me is a little nervous about moving away,” says Sophie, the daughter of Ron Delezio, a former electrician, and his wife Carolyn Martin, a teacher. “Yet there is another part of me that is very excited. In fact, I can’t wait to go. I know there are going to be tears when I get on the plane, but I know that will only be for a few moments.