Student bounces back after spinal injury
AFTER a horror Christmas Day fall from a window ledge Adrienne Thomson feared she would never walk again.
Now the determined 26-yearold has completed her third sports degree – and is letting nothing hold her back.
Adrienne was 18 when the accident happened, breaking her back in three places and seeing her avoid permanent spinal damage by just inches.
She said: “It was Christmas night in 2013 and I had been at a family party, and we had come home for some drinks.
“I was talking to my boyfriend and was too hot and wanted some air, so was sitting on the window sill with my legs in the room.
“As I went to come back in, I slipped and slid off the roof, landing on my back in an L position.
“I was in shock. I lay there and didn’t feel anything, until I tried to get up and couldn’t move.
“Eventually I army crawled onto my stomach. My boyfriend thought I was joking around and kept telling me to get up.
“He only realised how serious it was when I told him he needed to call an ambulance, because I couldn’t move.”
Adrienne, originally from Irvine, was rushed on a spinal board in an ambulance to Crosshouse Hospital in Kilmarnock, and then to the Southern General Hospital
She said: “I woke up on Boxing Day and me and my family thought I was paralysed from the waist down. I couldn’t move my legs. It was terrifying and if I’m honest, I thought life as I knew it was over.
“I lay on my back for five days, and only then did some movement come back in my feet and toes.
“Doctors gave me two options: I could lie on my back for three months, or go straight for an operation to fix the bones in my spine I crushed when I fell.
“For me, there was only one option.
“I went into theatre and brought the bells in at New Year with morphine and a nurse.”
Adrienne’s surgery was a nine-hour long procedure where she had metal plates inserted into her spine around the injury.
She then spent three months in a brace and had specialised physiotherapy.
Adrienne said: “I had to relearn how to do everything again.
“The physiotherapy was amazing, because it worked on things you wouldn’t normally think of even doing.
“I spent months driving fake cars, walking up stairs – even squatting as if I was going to the toilet.”
Adrienne added: “You just don’t think you will ever need to learn how to do these things because they are so second nature, but for me,
“I had to start at the beginning. It was frustrating but incredible at the same time.”
Always a sporty person, Adrienne had dreams of being a dancer before her fall.
Even in her brace, she was determined that nothing would stop her.
Adrienne said: “I kept it a secret from my parents at the time, but I arranged with my uncle that I would still go to my audition for a dance course that April.
“I know it was stupid and potentially dangerous, particularly because the audition was four hours long, but I did it.
“Taking my brace off, I thought my body would fall apart.
“I did the audition and put my brace back on again and was so lucky, because I got the place.”
Although no longer a dancer, Adrienne has continued to complete three degrees in sports, health and nutrition at Glasgow Caledonian University, and teaches children, vulnerable people and the elderly a range of sports with South Ayrshire Council.
Her next adventure, after lockdown is lifted, is to teach sports on cruise ships.
For now, she is coaching children in lockdown at schools and online.
Adrienne said: “I finished my dance degree but knew with my injury my career as