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Fall broke Nicky's back...

Fall broke Nicky’s back... but
not her fighting spirit

1    While sleeping in her grandmother’s    alerted by her screams and called the police.
 flat, Nicky Birtles had a terrible435    After being rushed to hospital, doctors told her she
 nightmare: burglars had set fire to the would be permanently crippled unless she lay flat on
 flat, and the only way out was the her back for three months. And even then they could
5 first floor window. So Nicky threw not guarantee she would recover. “I’d survived the fall,
 herself through the window and fell 15 feet on to a but lying there was a living hell,” Nicky recalled. “One
 concrete path below. Her nightmare suddenly became40 day the doctor came along and drew a diagram of what
 very real. She was so badly injured that it was feared my spine looked like and what it would look like if I
 she was paralysed. were paralysed - it was all misshapen. That really
210    Nicky’s ordeal started last May after an evening of shocked me into lying still for the rest of the time.
 baby-sitting for her aunt Julie’s three children at her5    “When I was in hospital the thought of my friends
 grandmother’s flat. Just a month earlier Nicky’s uncle45 going out all the time was really hard to cope with.
 Wayne had also stayed at the flat and was badly beaten They would come and visit me and tell me what they’d
 with a baseball bat after tackling two burglars. Nicky been up to.” But Nicky didn’t give up and was
15 said: “That was on my mind as    gradually able to walk
 I went to sleep but I convinced after three months.
 myself that I was safe in the650    Nicky does not dwell
 flat.” on the nightmare that put
3    The next thing Nicky knew her in hospital. “I haven’t
20 she was dreaming that two had a dream like it since
 burglars had entered her room but I certainly won’t sleep
 and set fire to the flat. “I had to55 in my gran’s flat again.
 get away, I was so scared. The Every time I go there I get
 nightmare was so realistic that I the shivers!”
25 could actually feel the flames7    The accident also made
 burning my skin and I could Nicky determined to make
 smell it. I ran to the window60 the most of every second
 and pulled it open and hurled of her life. “I feel
 myself out. I landed on the differently now, I want to
30 ground and tried to get up but do more things because I
 I couldn’t. I dragged myself realise how close I came
 along crying out for help.”65 to losing everything.”
 Eventually a neighbour was