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A cheeky fag

Snapped my neck!

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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!

 ??  ??
 ??  ?? Brace your­self… it could’ve been so much worse
Brace your­self… it could’ve been so much worse
 ??  ?? My fella, Christo­pher, tried so hard to save me
My fella, Christo­pher, tried so hard to save me
 ??  ?? I do love a cheeky smoke!
I do love a cheeky smoke!
 ??  ??
 ??  ?? I plunged three storeys down from my flat, left. Right, here’s me cud­dling with my bro, Macken­zie
I plunged three storeys down from my flat, left. Right, here’s me cud­dling with my bro, Macken­zie
 ??  ??
 ??  ?? Char­lie’s still got a mummy!
Char­lie’s still got a mummy!

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