21 March 2023 , 16:18
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A holidaymaker was left unable to walk after slipping next to a pool in Portugal.
Debbie Aspinall, 48, was on holiday to Faro with her husband Warren and a group of friends when she slipped at their villa.
She broke the fifth vertebra in her spine and was left paralysed from the waist down, initially putting it down to "shock".
Debbie, from Rainford, St Helens, said she couldn't feel anything below her neck and her friends called an ambulance.
At the hospital, she underwent a scan before at the hospital and quickly was rushed to emergency surgery.
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She spent the next four weeks in a Portuguese hospital before flying back to the UK where she was taken to the Walton Centre before being moved to Southport Hospital then Sandpipers for rehabilitation.
Debbie during her rehabilitation after breaking her neck during a holiday in Portugal (Liverpool ECHO)Debbi told the ECHO: "We were going on holiday to Portugal with a group of friends.
"Me and Warren had just started our new business and this holiday was meant to be the last one before we got properly busy.
"I put my foot down as I got up from the sun lounger and I slipped, then cracked my head on the floor.
"All of a sudden I couldn't feel anything below my neck. I just thought I was stunned and half an hour later my friend who's a nurse looked me over.
"My hand started to claw and she called me an ambulance. They were poking me and I couldn't feel it. I passed out a few times then they sent me straight for a scan when I got to the hospital. They then sent me for emergency surgery and had to cut my clothes off me."
Debbie also revealed that she hasn't been back to her home in Rainford since before the injury despite being back in the UK for six months.
She said: "They were doing physio from the first day to try and wake up my limbs. Then in the second week, they started trying to sit me at the end of my bed. They put me on the end of the bed to test my balance but I was just floppy.
"I was like jelly when they sat me up. That's when it really sank in, I had a panic attack and didn't move for two days. But after that, I got a really good physio, Marco, who was amazing. Looking back now I have no idea how I did it."
Debbie endlessly praised the NHS when speaking to the ECHO about the last six months, with her explaining how "you never think this will happen to you".
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Now, her family and friends are trying to raise as much money as possible to help transform their home and buy specialist equipment as Debbie recovers from the horrific fall.