AMY Webb knew she and her family had had a miraculous escape when they emerged unscathed from a serious car crash.

It proved to be a life changing moment that put the Hampshire mother-of-three on the path towards working in the church.

The 40-year-old was with her daughters, then aged seven and five, when they were involved in a car crash in France that saw their car roll over twice down a ditch.

Although the vehicle was totally destroyed, miraculously none of them were hurt.

Amy says she had a real sense of God’s presence during the accident – and also that life was short - which prompted her to realise what God wanted her to do.

A worshipper at St John’s Church in Fareham, she will become curate in the villages of Botley, Curdridge and Durley following her ordination at Portsmouth Cathedral this Saturday .

Amy, who has recently moved to Botley from Fareham, drifted away from the church at 16.

Towards the end of her marriage, she became involved with St John’s Church through an Alpha course after a leaflet came through the door 15 year sago.

It was through the church she met new husband of eight years Mark.

Though Amy had looked at the possibility of being a reader – a lay minister who leads services, her vicar told her mother-in-law he did not think she was the right person for the role – Amy did not realise he had in fact meant she would be suitable for ordination.

So Amy, who was working as a learning support assistant at Fareham Academy, did not pursue it further until the car crash during a family holiday in 2008.

“I felt I might die and have I done everything that perhaps God’s calling me to do was in my mind,” said Amy.

“As the car landed my youngest daughter said ‘Are we dead?’.

“It was quite miraculous that we weren’t harmed.”

Amy and her daughters Isobel Webb-Pratt, 13, and Mathilda Webb-Pratt, 11, only sustained cuts and bruises.

“I had this amazing sense of God’s presence in the silence,” she said.

“I was alive and so were the girls,” she said. "I felt that God was saying to me that my life could end at any time and what was I going to do with it?”

Amy went on to complete the three-year training after giving birth to her third child Sebastian, now 4.