Kaya at full throttle towards the future

Kaya McInnes revs a little harder and then her motorcross bike speeds off, kicking up dirt and mud and giving the 16-year-old novice rider an adrenalin rush like nothing she's ever known before.

It's a wobbly first ride across a farmer's field which ends with a sudden awkward halt in some nearby bushes, the branches poking their way into the young rider's face. Yet straight away she's squealing with excitement and begging for more.

Later when Kaya giggles and admits that first ever ride was just a little scary – "but I loved it!" – it's clear that, against incredible odds, she's now hooked on the speed, danger and perils of being a biker.

It's a remarkable moment. For if anyone had cause to fear the risks of the road and the dangers of speed, it would have to be Kaya.

Just over two years ago, when she was 13, she was left fighting for life after a horrific smash that claimed the lives of her aunt and a family friend.

Kaya was originally thought to be dead too until medics at the scene of the smash found the tiniest flicker of life. She reached hospital in a deep coma to be placed on a life support system.

Her devastated mother, Leonora, travelled from Edinburgh to hospital in Inverness to be warned by concerned medics that her daughter still might not survive.

Kaya had suffered bleeding and swelling to her brain, a punctured lung, broken ribs and a fractured pelvis. Her aunt, Elizabeth Foley, from Falkirk, and family friend Jim Moffat, from Gilmerton – who had heroically tried to prevent a full frontal collision with the camper van heading towards them on the wrong side of the road – tragically lost their lives.

Incredibly, though, feisty James Gillespie pupil Kaya somehow pulled through. Within weeks and with a determination that stunned medical staff, she had learned to walk and talk all over again.

But while her physical progress was exceptional, Kaya had sustained other injuries which couldn't be properly healed. For the once promising young musician with dreams of one day becoming a vet was left permanently brain damaged and facing an uncertain future.

"It's been hard," nods her mum, reflecting on a traumatic two and a half years since the accident on the notorious A9, just south of Inverness. "The thing is she looks like there's nothing wrong with her, but there is.

"She tried to go back to school afterwards and pick up where she left off, but she couldn't remember basic things – she'd forgotten things like her times tables, you'd have to tell her time and again to do ordinary things like brush her teeth.

"Never in a million years would I have imagined that after all that, she'd ever get on a motorbike and enjoy it so much."

Instead Kaya, who was already fascinated by engines before her crash, thanks to an uncle who's a mechanic, amazed her family by successfully completing a course with Midlothian motorbike youth training organisation RUTS – the Rural and Urban Training Scheme.

There she learned the basics of cycle mechanics, tweaking engines and servicing bikes, before a special end of course treat saw her put her nightmare accident behind her to hop on a trials bike to ride for the first time.

Leonora says: "I was so scared. Kaya hadn't even ridden her bicycle since coming out of hospital. She had simply forgotten how to do it. I remember her screaming at me to get it away from her. It was never touched again.

"To think of her on a motorbike, it's amazing."

She adds: "Unfortunately she doesn't have much sense of fear, so my concern is that she gets a bit carried away. I've told her that if she asks me for a motorbike the answer is 'no, no and no again'."

However Kaya, who suffers from short-term memory loss and dramatic mood swings, is determined to build her future around mechanics, motorbikes and, as unthinkable as it might have sounded in the aftermath of her crash, even cars.

Soon she'll start unpaid work experience at a garage in Granton, she's working to improve her numbers skills with maths support service The Number Shop at The Pleasance and hopes to head to Telford College to gain vital qualifications to help pursue her dream.

"It was a bit scary at first but I did it. The only thing was it was quite heavy to steer at first.

"I got half up the hill and then just couldn't manage to get any further and went straight into some bushes.I didn't have the guard down on my helmet, so the branches were in my face but I was okay.

"Once I got the hang of it, it was brilliant!"

Now, with her RUTS bike training behind her and a healthy sum of cash in a trust fund – damages she received for her injuries following the crash – she's already set her sights on eventually running her own motor service business.

"I want to be a mechanic," grins Kaya. "And I'm going to call my business McInnes Mechanics – sounds good, doesn't it?"

Teenagers grab the chance to kick-start a new career in motorbike mechanics

IN A workshop in Newtongrange, three teenagers are getting to grips with the intricacies of internal combustion engines, brake systems and gearboxes.

They are the latest intake referred from a variety of sources to RUTS, a project jointly funded by the Big Lottery, Inspiring Scotland and four councils, where youths facing a range of difficulties can learn more about what for many of them, is something they are usually warned away from.

"Motorbikes are so often seen as a nuisance," agrees Caroline Ferguson, project manager. "Yet motor sport can be really positive if it's all properly channelled."

The project teaches basic motorcycle repair skills which can be used as a launchpad to a career.

And 19-year-old John Black, from Leith, hopes it could be the start of a whole new life.

He was 14 when he left home in London to come to Scotland to be with his father. "But he didn't want anything to do with me, so I spent two years living rough," says John.

Now with fiance Rachel Clabby, 17, he's preparing for the birth of their first child – and a better chapter in his life. "I loved cars when I was little but I never had the chance to do anything about it. I really want to get an apprenticeship and a job."

Sixteen-year-old Denholm Harvey, from Niddrie, feels the same. He left Holyrood Secondary School without any qualifications – now he realises he has to catch up if he is going to get a job.

"I just didn't like school, so I didn't go," he says. "I know now that I should have."

Instead he'd muck about on motorbikes. Now, with help from RUTS he's determined to get the qualifications he needs to make a career.

The project runs training programmes from its Newtongrange and newly opened West Lothian bases. It also co-ordinates mobile units which travel to schools.

Father-to-be Rikki Shields, 17, of Pilton, agrees that RUTS offers a "make or break" opportunity for him.

With no qualifications, he hopes the project will help him access a car mechanics course at college.

"I'm not going to let the opportunity to do something get away," he says.

Find out more about RUTS at www.ruts.org.uk