A young British woman given just a five per cent chance of survival after a horror skiing accident has bravely spoken about making a “miracle” recovery.
Olivia Corbiere, 23, suffered a brain bleed, lung damage, a broken pelvis and three fractured vertebrae when she fell 15ft (4.5m) down a ravine in Bansko, Bulgaria, in March.
Doctors who first tended to the stricken kitchen designer told her mum Linzi, 46, she had a limited chance of pulling through - and might never talk again if she did.
But remarkably, after Olivia was flown to Britain for treatment and spent a total of six weeks in hospital, she has been allowed to come home.
She still has some hearing loss and nerve damage on the right side of her face - affecting her eyelid movement - along with a wound at the back of her head.
But Olivia has now thanked her doting sister Phoebe Corbiere, 19, and five close friends who were with her when she had the accident for saving her life.
Olivia Corbiere, 23, suffered a brain bleed, lung damage, a broken pelvis and three fractured vertebrae when she fell 15ft (4.5m) down a ravine in Bansko, Bulgaria, in March.
Doctors who first tended to the stricken kitchen designer told her mum Linzi, 46, she had a limited chance of pulling through - and might never talk again if she did.
But remarkably, after Olivia was flown to Britain for treatment and spent a total of six weeks in hospital, she has been allowed to come home.
She still has some hearing loss and nerve damage on the right side of her face - affecting her eyelid movement - along with a wound at the back of her head.
But Olivia has now thanked her doting sister Phoebe Corbiere, 19, and five close friends who were with her when she had the accident for saving her life.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hi, my name's Olivia. I'm 23 years old. At 17, I had a skiing accident in Bulgaria. I
00:12fractured my pelvis, part of my spine, and fractured my skull as well as my eye sockets.
00:22We'd finished skiing for the day, so it was just on the smaller part of the slopes called
00:26the ski road. Obviously, my friends have told me as I don't remember parts of my accident.
00:33The weather on this lower part wasn't as great, so the snow was a little bit choppy, and it
00:39caused one of my skis to overlap the other, and I wasn't able to straighten it up. I fell
00:46into a ravine. Three of my friends jumped into the ravine to lift me up as I was knocked
00:51unconscious. They climbed down the 20-foot drop. They flagged down emergency services.
00:58Luckily, there was a ski school passing, so the instructor was able to radio for help
01:03quicker than what it would have been if we had to ring the snowmobile team. Then I was
01:09directed onto a snowmobile, and then I was taken to the hospital from there. I was in
01:13hospital for roughly around about six and a half weeks. It was only the last two weeks
01:18that I remember from hospital, whereas the times before that, the two weeks in Bulgaria
01:22hospital, I don't remember any of that. It was just a lot of physio that I was doing,
01:28and then my friends and family coming to visit me. I did really want to go home to be with
01:32my family, my sister, my mum and dad, and my dogs. Once I had the sign-off to say that
01:39I was ready to come home, I was really grateful. Once I am fully recovered, at the moment I'm
01:45not at work. I had brain surgery, so I've got to wait until I'm signed off by the neuro
01:52team to make sure that my brain's working properly and stuff like that. Once all my
01:56physio's completed, I want to be back at my football training with my team. Just be back
02:02to normal life, even little bits where me and some of my friends used to go to a spin
02:07class together. Just be back to complete normality. Hopefully that won't be too long.
02:15For more information visit www.iclinic.co.uk