“WE still don't know where we are with Ellie, it's so complex.”

That’s the message from the father of the 17-year-old motorcyclist who was left in a coma after a horror crash in Reading earlier this month.

Ellie-May Weaver has been in intensive care at Oxford’s John Radcliffe hospital since the incident on Kings Road on the afternoon of December 14.

She was placed into an induced coma after suffering terrible injuries when a tipper truck reportedly reversed into her as she was riding her motorbike.

Now out of the coma, the teenager, from Binfield in Bracknell Forest, is said to have a brain injury, bone fractures and has lost the use of her right arm.

READ MORE: One person injured after motorbike and lorry crash

Speaking to this newspaper on December 30, Ellie-May’s father Paul gave an update on her daughter’s condition.

He said: “Yesterday she went for an operation to try and save her leg. She originally severed her right leg from the knee down and they had to take quite a lot of stuff from her back, muscle and other parts to reconstruct that leg.

“This has been the fourth attempt to do the operation. So the longer they leave it, the higher the risk of it not taking and not being successful.

“So it was touch and go where it had been left so long, whether it was actually going to work.

“I left her as they sedated her and 10 hours and 40 minutes later, the plastic surgeon said they still had her on the operating table.

“They were very positive with it. It looks really, really good. But the next few days are quite critical.

“If it doesn't work then she will lose the lower half of her right leg.

“She's got a lot of things wrong with her. And we are just trying to concentrate on one thing at a time at the moment.”

"Very complex"

Ellie-May has been on and off ventilators in recent days and now she is out of a coma her family has been trying to communicate with her.

READ MORE: Kings Road closed by police after lorry crash

Police cordon off Kings Road, Reading, following the incident.

Police cordon off Kings Road, Reading, following the incident.

Paul said his daughter is struggling with a few memory problems and has trouble recalling her family visiting her at hospital.

He added that she does not remember her motorbike either and more tests will need to be done to understand the extent of her brain injury.

The father said he has found the experience “so overwhelming” as several different specialists update him daily on Ellie-May’s “very complex” problems, which also includes a blood clot on her lungs and kidney failure.

Describing seeing Ellie-May in hospital after the incident, Paul said: “The fact that she was just non-responsive, it was horrendous.

“[Last week] I couldn't have this conversation I'm having with you that I am right now because I would just start crying.

“With the ventilator in her mouth, they reduce the sedatives to a point where she can open her eyes halfway and nod and move her hand.

“So she can respond to us. With the ventilator in, it just made such a difference on how it impacted on us, it meant we can cope a little bit better and we can have conversations better.

“But we still don't know where we are with Ellie. She's so complex.

“She's going to have life-changing injuries that are going to affect her for the rest of her life. She’s got a lot more surgery to go through.”

"I was lost for words"

A fundraiser has been set up to support Ellie-May’s family with £5,348 raised by well-wishers so far.

Paul said the money has not been touched yet and the family are holding off using it as they wait for news on potential procedures and living support his daughter may need.

The father said he was touched by the amount raised, which included a donation from a disabled man who is trying to gather £150,000 for a procedure for himself that he hopes will enable him to walk again.

Paul said: “We started talking, he started asking about my daughter and then he ended up finding the link and putting money into it as well.

“And this guy, he's trying to raise 150,000 pounds. He’s reached £100,000 and I just found it so overwhelming that he hasn’t reached his own target and he still decided to put his hand in his pocket and give us some money.

“He just said that ‘at the end of the day, we all need help sometimes.’ It was so kind, I was just lost for words, I didn't know what to say.”

"It's one thing at a time"

Paul has also been crowdsourcing messages of support for Ellie from Instagram’s biking community in the hope the well-wishes ‘take her mind off things’ as she recovers.

He added: “When she wakes up, she can read these messages and see the love and support because I thought she's going to have so much to deal with when she comes around and I just wanted her to see so much love and support from other people.

“And I thought it might just help take her mind off things, if it's something else to focus on, rather than just sitting there looking at a cage around her leg.

“But just going back right to the brain injury. We don't even know how she's going to respond and we don’t know where she is with it.

“So it's kind of one thing at a time, day by day, one thing at a time and, everything changes every day. Like I said, this operation she had last night was the fourth attempt.

“So we just have no idea, we have to take every day as it comes.”