Makeup artist, 19, who had 25 surgeries to reconstruct her head and neck after a horror New Year’s Eve crash that killed her best friend issues chilling warning to drivers

A makeup artist narrowly escaped death in a horror New Year's Eve crash that killed her best friend and left her blind in one eye.

Sydney teenagers Tahlia Mardini and Tegan Galea-Elson were excited for the new year as they partied at a house in Punchbowl, in Sydney, on New Year's Eve 2017.

But minutes into 2018, Ms Galea-Elson was dead and Ms Mardini fighting for life with catastrophic injuries after a horror car crash.

A video taken just three minutes earlier shows Ms Galea-Elson happily singing and dancing in the passenger seat in sync with Ms Mardini, seated in the back.

Then suddenly the speeding driver high on prescription pills taking them to another party in Chester Hill ploughed his car into a parked ute.

As doctors worked around the clock to keep her alive, Ms Mardini's parents were told they would be lucky if their daughter made it through the next 72 hours. 

Tahlia Mardini , 19, was in a horror car crash in the early hours of New Year's Day in 2018

Tegan Galea-Elson (pictured on the left with Ms Mardini) was sitting in the passengers seat when the car ploughed into a parked ute and she died at the scene

But when Ms Mardini miraculously came out of a coma five weeks later, she awoke into an inconceivable nightmare.

As she laid in her hospital bed asking her parents when Ms Galea-Elson was going to come to visit, they had to give her the devastating news she would never see her best friend again.

'I can’t begin to explain how s**t it is to wake up one day and be told you survived but your best friend didn’t,' she told Daily Mail Australia. 

'I broke down, I had so much guilt in my heart. Why did god save me and not her? I wouldn’t wish that feeling on my worst enemy.'

Ms Mardini and Ms Galea-Elson were two peas in a pod since meeting the first day of Year 9 at Sylvania High School, in Sydney's southeast, in 2015. 

Three years later, the pair, then aged 16 and 17, were excited to be spending their first New Year's Eve together when they arrived at the house party in Punchbowl. 

As the clock edged towards midnight, the girls decided to relocate to a friend's place in Chester Hill to watch the fireworks, but they were hesitant about spending their few dollars on catching a taxi. 

When Ms Galea-Elson's friend Yassin El Seidi called and offered to give them a lift, the teenagers were relieved they could hold on to their cash.  

The driver Yassin El Siedi was on a cocktail of prescription drugs tramadol and diazepam when and had been weaving through traffic at dangerous speed at the time of the crash

The car slammed into the ute with such force the ute was propelled 10 metres down the road and slammed into a power pole

But as soon as the car took off, Ms Mardini started to feel uneasy.  

'He was driving so stupidly from the start. But back then, driving silly is cool and we didn’t want to say anything because he was already doing us a favour by giving us a lift,' she said.

'I just sat in the back and shut up... It was the stupidest decision I could have made'.

Ms Mardini said the last memory she has of the night before the crash was El Seidi briefly stopping at a chemist.

Moments later the car rammed into the back of a parked ute in Yagoona with such force the ute bent a power pole it was thrown into 10m down the road. 

But first, the ute tray had smashed through the passenger side, hitting Ms Galea-Elson then Ms Mardini from their chest to their heads.

Witnesses rushed out of their homes and called paramedics, but Ms Galea-Elson had already lost too much blood by the time they arrived at the scene.

With a broken nose, cheek, eye socket and her head smashed, Ms Mardini laid in the back of the crumpled vehicle muttering 'dad' for five minutes before slipping into a coma. 

Now, Ms Mardini wishes they weren't too cheap to pay the taxi fare.  

Ms Mardini slipped into a coma for five weeks and spent three months in hospital relearning how to speak and walk

The car crash left her with a traumatic brain injury as well as fractures to her skull and neck, multiple facial injuries and partial deafness and vision loss

El Seidi, who escaped injury, was on a cocktail of prescription drugs tramadol and diazepam when the girls got in the car and had been weaving through traffic at dangerous speed.

In July, he was sentenced to five years in prison - and is yet to apologise to Ms Mardini.

Ms Mardini, now 19, suffered a traumatic brain injury as well as fractures to her skull and neck, multiple facial injuries and is deaf in her right ear and and blind in her left eye. 

She spent three months in Liverpool hospital starting life over 'from scratch'.

'It was like I was a baby coming out of the womb. I had to learn everything. I had to take my first steps. I had to learn how to speak,' she said.

Since the crash, she has undergone 25 surgeries to reconstruct her head and neck - and still has more to go. 

'The big ones were on my neck, jaw, nose, and cheek bone- just piecing my head back together- but the majority have been on my eye,' she said.

Ms Mardini has undergone 25 surgeries to reconstruct her head and neck. She is pictured with her parents and sister

'They had to put a metal piece behind my eye to push it forward and I lost my eyelid, so they had to cut me out a new one.'

Ms Mardini now suffers from short-term memory loss, fatigue, mood swings and trouble concentrating- all lasting effects of her brain ­injury.  

After losing her closest friend, Ms Mardini's whole world came crashing down as she soon realised those she thought would support did not have her back.

As she adjusted to her new life, she found herself being targeted by bullies over her horrific injuries that forever altered her life and appearance.

She picked up a TAFE course in make up artistry to learn how to cover her scars and to redirect her focus away from the tragedy.

'The harshest reality is your fake friends run off ­because they never really cared about you in the first place,' she said.

'Friends came to visit me in hospital just so they could have a geez and tell everyone: "Tahlia’s face is f**ked up", "Tahlia has no eye", "Tahlia has no teeth" and all the rest of it.

'I miss being treated normal like everyone else my age. I am looked down upon by so many people.

The teenager is now studying community service to help others and has pledged to continue raising awareness about the impacts of speeding in honour of her best friend

Despite the constant pain of losing her closest friend, Ms Mardini said the crash has transformed her life for the better. 

Although she is still unable to work, she shut the door on her previous career as a banker and instead enrolled in a Certificate IV in community service 'to do good in this world'.

Every week she returns to the scene of the crash to lay fresh flowers, and remember her 'amazing' best friend.

In her honour, Ms Mardini pledges to use the second chance at life she was granted to raise awareness about the importance of safe driving- and has a poignant message for drivers.  

'No one thinks it is going to happen to them. I never thought it was going to happen to me,' she said. 

'I didn’t jump in the car and think "I should give Tegan a big hug because it is the last time I am going to see her.  

‘Please remember: you would rather be five minutes late in this life than five minutes early up into your next life in heaven.'