A BRAVE fitness fanatic has revealed how she has taken her first steps after fearing she would never walk again following a devastating fall.
Mhairi Anderson, 26, suffered multiple horrific injuries which included a broken back and had to have her left leg rebuilt with 27 screws.
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She told how she underwent numerous surgeries, including two metal rods to hold her pelvis together so her organs wouldn’t fall down.
But after more than two years of gruelling physio and painstaking recovery, Mhairi has taken her first steps to start walking again and has even been able to start jogging.
She said: “I never thought I would walk again. Now I’m planning on doing a 5k run.”
Mhairi was left fighting for life after she plunged 60ft from the window of a friend’s flat on April 18, 2021.
The once sporty fitness fanatic was rushed straight to hospital and had to undergo a nine-hour surgery.
With no real recollection of the fall, Mhairi’s next memory is waking up in the hospital bed and being told she would need multiple surgeries and that she may never walk again.
As well as breaking her spine, left leg, ankle and pelvis, Mhairi said she lost all feeling and movement in her right leg, too.
Despite initial success with the surgery, Mhairi said she was told she may never walk again.
It was a month and a half before Mhairi, from Airdrie, North Lanarkshire, could even get in her wheelchair as she began the excruciating recovery journey.
Once she was allowed to put weight on her left leg, she discovered it was working better than she first thought.
After spending hours on end trying to get her right leg to show any sign of movement, she eventually started to see some signs of improvement.
Still determined and desperate to walk again, she began a transition from parallel bars to a walking frame and then finally crutches.
But her right leg still wasn’t strong enough and the next two months were spent trying to build it up.
Four months later Mhairi was able to walk for a few minutes and a year later was able to ditch her crutches and even think about running again.
She has now taken steps towards completing her first 5k since the fall after returning to jogging.
She said: “I sustained a spinal injury and broke my left tibia and fibula as well as damaging my ankle so bad the surgeon couldn’t make out which bones went where.
“I lost all feeling and movement on my right leg and had my left leg rebuilt with 27 screws in it after another surgery.
“I then had more surgery, this time on my pelvis with two metal rods holding it together and to stop my organs falling.
“After this surgery, my family was sat down and told it’s likely I was never going to walk again and will ‘have to get used to a new normal’.
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“Determined to get my leg stronger, I joined a gym and would spend days walking around on crutches.
“I trained myself up to run and then began my running journey, this is where I am now.”
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