Top New Zealand mountainbiker Vanessa Quin broke her neck during the national championships in Nelson at the weekend but has escaped being paralysed.
The former world downhill champion fractured her C2 vertebra after spilling in her seeding run on Saturday. She also cracked her sternum and suffered hand injuries.
The horror crash comes after an injury-plagued 2006 season, where she shattered her arm in a world cup race in Spain and needed further surgery after the Rotorua world championships in August.
It's left the 30-year-old from Tauranga contemplating another six months off her bike, although she's just relieved she's still able to walk.
"I've had some pretty amazing crashes where I've walked away scot-free ... but this one was over the handlebars which is never good," Quin said from her hospital bed.
The C2 injury is the same vertebra former Superman actor Christopher Reeve and top New Zealand jockey Ken Browne both crushed, leaving them paralysed.
It's the second time in five years Quin has broken a bone in her neck, after crashing on a velodrome in 2002. Her boyfriend, Niki Urwin, is a former motocross champion who was paralysed after crashing during a competition in Melbourne four years ago.
"Because I've been through one neck injury, I wasn't too scared when they diagnosed it, but there were a few teary moments. The doctors are pretty happy with the stability of it, and there are absolutely no spinal problems at all - no tingling or anything."
Quin's crash came halfway through her seeding run on a deteriorating track through a Nelson pine forest.
"I was quite winded so I sat there for a minute until the marshalls came and got me off the track.
"I knew straight away that things weren't all where they should be but I just needed to move because I knew how long things take to happen that far into the forest."
With the aid of a marshall, she managed to walk nearly a kilometre down the track to the first-aid tent, where a medic immobilised her neck.
Six men then stretchered her off the course to a nearby forestry road and Quin said the response from organisers and event staff had been `outstanding'.
She will now be in a metal brace for up to 10 weeks and hopes to be well enough to fly back to Tauranga later this week, determined to get back on a bike again soon.
"Like I've said in the past - you can't live your life in cotton wool.
"I'll take this one day by day, and I'm just feeling very, very lucky." |
