A cheeky fag
Snapped my neck!
Huffing up the stairs after a fag, I cursed my third-floor rented flat for the umpteenth time. It was a beautiful old building, but the six flights of stone stairs were an absolute killer.
I had a strict rule, though – no smoking in the flat. Didn’t want my four-year-old son, Charlie, from an earlier relationship, breathing my fumes.
So, every time I needed a nicotine hit, I had to traipse down these ruddy stairs and light-up outside.
‘If this doesn’t make me cut down, nothing will,’ I muttered ruefully as I let myself back in.
I was 22, and I’d been puffing since I was 11.
My grandad,walter, 67, was always telling me I spent too much money on fags – £30
a week, usually.
‘If you quit that dirty smoking, you could afford the deposit for a house,’ he’d chide. ‘Then you wouldn’t have so many steps to climb.’
I was down to about
10 a day, but no way was I quitting completely.
Everyone needs a vice, and I’m not a big drinker, so mine is a cheeky fag. Walking into the living room, I winced as a toy car dug painfully into my foot, almost sending me flying.
Charlie was a right petrol head, just like his daddy, and he loved to turn our living room carpet into a carpark, lining them all up for inspection.
‘You nearly squashed my green tractor,’ he scolded.
‘Green Tractor had better watch where he puts his wheels,’ I joked back.
Truth is, I’d always been a bit clumsy. I really didn’t need a toy car to come a cropper.
I’m forever bashing into the corner of the kitchen table, spilling mugs of tea and dropping piles of washing.
My mum, Claire, 46, and brothers Christopher, 17, and Mackenzie, 16, jokingly call me ‘Butterfingers’. I get really annoyed with myself, too – stubbing my toe on the bed, then throwing a hissy fit and kicking it, hurting myself even more.
I’m Scotland’s answer to
Bridget Jones! But, despite being a klutz, the only serious injury I’ve ever had was when I fell off my aunt’s horse, Domino, as a teenager, fracturing three ribs.
We’d gone for a gallop on the beach and the little sod had taken off, bucking like a bronco until he sent me flying.
I didn’t hold it against him, though. I still love horses now. My mum has a brown and white pony called Harper, and I still enjoy going to the stables.
I’d much rather be mucking out than hitting nightclubs with my mates, truth be told, but I wear thick workmen’s gloves to protect my nail extensions – horsy lasses can be girlie, too! I’m at the salon every three weeks to get my acrylics topped up nicely.
Between the riding, being a mummy and my full-time job at Sainsbury’s Bank, I don’t have time for much else. And when Charlie stays at his dad’s for the weekend, I’m too exhausted to go out partying.
It was on one of my mummyfree weekends, in February 2019, when my wee smoking habit decided to catch up with me...
They print all sorts of horrible photos on the packets, of course. Manky diseased lungs and infertility warnings... But I’ve never taken much notice.
I know smoking’s a killer, but I had plenty of time to give up. That Sunday, 25 February 2019, me and my new boyfriend, Christopher Barclay, 27, watched the rugby, then grabbed a bite in a restaurant.
‘Mmmmm, Sunday stodge,’ I grinned, tucking into a plateful of lasagne with garlic bread.
Back at my flat, Charlie was dropped home after dinner.
‘Bath and bed, young man,’ I told him.
He’s not a fan of soap, but I soon got him into his Cars jammies and tucked him up with Frozen on his ipad. ‘No singing tonight,’ I told him. He likes to belt out Let It Go loud enough to rattle the rafters.
Me and Christopher settled down to watch an action film. A Jason Statham classic with plenty of explosions.
‘Well, that’s my drama done for the evening,’ I yawned as the credits rolled, about 11pm.
‘Hang on, before we go to bed you have to see this Foo Fighters video,’ Christopher gushed, firing up Youtube on the telly. ‘It’s a spoof horror movie.’
I rolled my eyes, couldn’t really be bothered, but I let him put it on. We’d been together four months after meeting at work.
We were still in that newrelationship phase of humouring each other.
‘I’m just nipping to the loo,’ said Christopher as the band scampered around a haunted house. As soon as he’d left the room, my eyes flitted to the living room window.
A typical music video lasts about three minutes… the same as my average fag break.
Breaking my no-smokingindoors-rule, I grabbed my pack and got up.
Pushing a unicorn ornament out of the way, I opened the window frame outwards and plonked my bum on the sill.
‘Brrrrr, it’s chilly tonight,’ I thought as a freezing wind danced up my back.
Keeping half an eye on the telly, I puffed away, inhaling, then leaning out backwards every few seconds to blow smoke away from the room.
With a bit of luck, Christopher wouldn’t even smell it...
I flicked my butt out into the night air... and followed it!
Somehow, my bottom had ended up further out of the window than I’d realised.
As I flicked that butt, my balance went.
When you fall off a horse, you know what’s coming. You have that point of no return where you realise you’ve lost control.
But this was different. They say accidents happen in slow motion but, for me, it was as if someone had pressed the fastforward button.
As I plunged backwards, I grabbed wildly at the window frame, missing, but managing to sink my falsies into the ledge outside. I hung there, the star of my very own real-life action movie, clinging to the window ledge for dear life as my legs dangled behind me, three storeys off the ground.
This wasn’t make-believe. It was real, and I was going to die...
‘CHRISTOPHER!’ I screamed, chest pounding in panic. ‘HELP!’
Seconds later, he was in front of me, leaning out of the window, his hands grappling to get a hold on my wrists.
For a fleeting moment, I felt relief. After all, Jason Statham would’ve hauled me to safety.
But then I saw the panic in Christopher’s eyes as my fingers began to slip from his.
Then I was out of his grasp and free-falling. ‘Gahhhhhh!’ I screamed as I plummeted like a stone, the icy wind whooshing through my hair as the frozen lawn of our communal garden rushed up to meet me. Then… nothing.
I’d landed on my back, knocking myself unconscious.
Waking up a couple of hours later in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, I blinked as my fella’s face slowly came into focus. I wasn’t dead!
‘You fell out of the window,’ he said. ‘I called an ambulance and your mum is with Charlie. She’s worried sick, though.’
High as a kite on morphine, it took me a while to process what Christopher was saying.
I’d plunged 30-odd feet. My sneaky fag break had nearly killed me.
I felt a rising terror as I realised I couldn’t move my legs.
‘It’s important you don’t try to move,’ doctors said, fitting me into a brace before sending me for CT and MRI scans.
My brain was spinning like a tumble dryer as I waited for the results. Would I be paralysed? Would I ever kick a rugby ball with Charlie again?
The specialist frowned as he looked at my scans.
‘You’ve fractured the
L5 to L2 vertebrae – in layman’s terms, you’ve broken your neck.’
‘Oh, my God,’ I blurted, images of life in a wheelchair flashing across my mind. ‘Will
I be able to walk again?’
‘It’s not as serious as it could be,’ he added. ‘You’ll be in a brace for 12 weeks but you should make a full
recovery. You’ve had a lucky escape.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ I gasped. ‘Bet you won’t be smoking any more,’ quipped a nurse.
But she was wrong… ‘I’m gasping for a fag, Mum,’ I confessed, just 24 hours later during visiting hours. ‘Can you take me outside?’ ‘Only you, Jess!’ Mum laughed. She pushed me to the hospital doors in a wheelchair, still in my flimsy nightie, and I sucked gratefully on a Players Real Red. A few days later, I posted an update on Facebook to tell people what’d happened. Yes, I was sober and I still have
all 10 acrylic nails, I joked. They’d been painted bright scarlet when I fell. Miraculously, none of them were even chipped.
Sadly, me and Christopher broke up while I was in hospital. I guess the shock of my fall was too much for a fledgling relationship to take. I didn’t blame him – he tried to save me.
Within two weeks, I was back on my feet and ready to be discharged, still wearing my neck brace.
It took almost 30 minutes to climb up all those blasted stairs to my flat, supporting myself on a walking frame like an OAP.
A few days later, Grandad Walter turned up at our door with his tool box. ‘I’m putting a lock on Charlie’s bedroom window, just in case,’ he told me.
Now, I’m out of my neck brace and back at work, taking my fag breaks safely on solid ground. What? You’re shocked?
It’s an addiction – I’m just not ready to give it the elbow. I realise, though, that I gave it my neck!
Perhaps they need to start printing photos of windows on the ciggie packets... that might make me think twice. Jessica Ross, 22, Edinburgh
I flicked my butt out – and followed it!