Teesside mental health charity offers advice for people struggling with A66 crash
Nine people, including two police officers, died in two separate incidents
A Teesside mental health charity is urging people to look after themselves if they've been affected by recent incidents.
Nine people have died, including two police officers, which started with the head-on crash on A66 near Middlesbrough and then an unrelated fatal house fire last week.
Leigh Trimble is from Red Balloons and said: "It has had an impact on all of us and I think particularly on people who perhaps have lost a loved one in similar circumstances or perhaps have recently lost a loved one. It can highlight the grief again for people when something like this happens.
"Anybody who is grieving or who is struggling to come to terms with something that's happened is it's a process that you go through. There's nothing that anybody can say or do that's going to stop that process from having to happen. But within all of it, the one thing that you can do is look after yourself; eat well, make sure that you're sleeping, make sure that you're resting, make sure you're hydrating.
"And if you're surrounded by people who are offering support, if you're surrounded by people who you can talk to, then take them up on those offers. Yes, it's a process that you need to go through, but look after yourself within that process.
"There's a lot of people saying a lot of things on social media and I think what I would say to anybody who feels particularly affected for whatever reason is stop reading the comments. There's a lot of different stories out there, some of it's true, some of it's not. Distance yourself from it if it's really affecting you because it's too easy to get sucked in and to get embroiled.
"People keep stoking the fuel and I think it's very difficult for people if they're already feeling vulnerable and this has really upset them. I think you keep it going yourself unfortunately if you continue to read these things so that would be my advice to anybody who's finding themselves really affected by this."