In August 1993 she was hit by a police motorcycle; her injuries included crushed ribs, a punctured lung, and the amputation of her left leg below the knee. Following the accident she arranged for unwanted prostheses to be sent from the United Kingdom to the war-torn former Yugoslavia. She was nominated for a Nobel Prize in 1996 for her work lobbying for a world-wide ban on landmines.
She married Paul McCartney in June 2002 in a highly elaborate ceremony at a castle in rural Ireland. Her personal life prior to the marriage was fairly colourful: homelessness, one previous marriage (to computer sales director Alfie Karmal), two ectopic pregnancies and two fiancés; she also sold her story of her recovery following the accident to a British tabloid, with details of how she and her boyfriend made love in her hospital bed.