A skier who was given 5% chance of survival after plummeting into a ravine in Bulgaria has opened up about her ‘miracle’ recovery.
Olivia Corbiere, from Aston, near Sheffield, suffered a brain bleed, lung damage, a broken pelvis and three fractured vertebrae when she fell 15ft down in the resort of Bansko.
She was pulled from the water by her friends before being rushed to a hospital in Sofia.
Her mother Linzi was told her daughter might not pull through – or might never talk again if she did.
Months have passed since the accident on March 17 in the Bulgarian mountains, and Olivia is on the road to recovery.
Speaking from her home, the 23-year-old said: ‘The actions of my sister and my friends that day are the reason why I’m here.
‘Three of them jumped into the ravine and helped get me out, and then the other ones called the emergency services.
‘They did not even think for a second not to jump in, and they could have hurt themselves. They are incredible. They are fabulous, they are amazing.
‘When I was in hospital I thanked them for doing what they did because they saved my life with how they reacted.’
Olivia had gone on the five-day trip with her sister and friends in the popular ski resort.
Despite being an experience skier, she recalls losing control and falling into the ravine.
‘Because there’s such a big drop, and because it was warmer weather and it had melted, I couldn’t turn out of it like I normally would,’ she said.
Her friends phoned for an ambulance and Olivia was rushed to a hospital where doctors said they had ‘never seen’ a head injury like hers.
She later underwent four hours of emergency surgery where specialists removed part of her skull to reduce a life-threatening bleed on her brain.
Olivia was also found to have suffered three fractured vertebrae, a broken pelvis, a broken eye socket and a broken nose in the horror fall.
Her mother jetted out to Bulgaria to be by her bedside before she was put into a medically induced coma to help stabilise her.
But Olivia, who has no recollection of the five-week period following her accident, began to improve once she was able to learn what had happened to her.
She said: ‘When I moved from the intensive care ward onto the neuro ward, it was about three or four days after that, my memory started to come back.
‘For some reason I thought I was in a car accident – or there were different stories that made sense to me that I don’t remember as to why I was in hospital.’
When she was brought back to the UK on April 1, doctors warned Linzi to prepare for a long recovery lasting several months or perhaps years.
But her mother was stunned at her daughter’s progress since the accident – and praised doctors in Britain and Bulgaria who had treated her.
She said it ‘absolutely feels like a miracle’, adding: ‘Do not get me wrong, the Bulgarian neurosurgeon saved Olivia’s life, but the care back in England is second to none. They’ve checked up on her constantly.
‘We were told she had a 5% chance of living and may not speak, but she’s done all that, she’s proved them wrong, she’s getting stronger every day.
‘Now, she can laugh and joke about herself and things like that – that’s really, really good. We’re absolutely over the moon.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
