Woman’s miraculous recovery after crashing through FIVE stories

Emily Wornes was looking out at the South American sunset – when her entire world came crashing down.

The 25-year-old was having the time of her life travelling with friends. But while relaxing on the rooftop terrace of a Peruvian hostel, the unthinkable happened.

With no warning at all the concrete floor completely gave way beneath her and she fell – through five stories – 14 metres to the marble ground floor.

“It wasn’t like I was walking on the edge, it was literally like walking on grass and then the ground just disappeared,” Emily tells Be.

“I remember just being so happy. I remember walking over to my friends, then they told me it was like I evaporated.”

It was December 2015 when free-spirited Emily and her friend Georgia Rose decided to join up with a group of guys to travel together to Columbia.

Road tripping in a Kombi van, they had made a pit stop in Huanchaco, eight hours north of the capital Lima, and were just relaxing and getting to know each other while watching the sunset.

“I went back downstairs to put my phone on charge and freshen up. When I walked back up everyone had moved across to the left,” Emily explains.

“I didn’t have time to think or realise what the hell had happened. All I remember is seeing heaps of wood. I tried to grab hold of anything,” she says.

Somehow she survived, but what started as a trip of a lifetime, had now become a nightmare.

“I woke up and was on the ground, and I felt like my legs were flipped over my head. They thought I was dead,” she says.

“Then I was torched with the most indescribable pain and I just started screaming. Everyone says I was just howling. But none of my screams seemed to match the pain.”

On impact Emily’s L3 vertebra in her spine had ‘exploded’, she’d shattered her right elbow, and broken her feet, her toes and her pelvis.

Between the language barrier and third-world medical practices, Emily spent three days in agony before she was given any painkillers. Her friends and complete strangers had to chip in to buy her medical supplies before she could be operated on.

“I was vomiting at this stage from the pain,” Emily remembers. “It got to the point where I was actually thinking just kill me, I didn’t want to go through that pain anymore.”

After the initial operation, Emily’s travel insurance flew her to San Diego, California, to receive better care and she underwent more major surgery at the Sharp Memorial Hospital, and the full extent of her injuries became clear.

“We realised that I didn’t just have a broken back. I ended up having a doctor assigned for every part of my body,” Emily tells us. “Doctors didn’t think that one of my legs would ever work again. My right leg had a lot of nerve damage.”

Emily showed incredible determination and strength to fight the pain and work on regaining her ability to move. Within four weeks she was able to sit up wearing a back brace.

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“I just had in my head that there’s no way in hell I’m not ever walking again, I just kept telling myself that every day,” she says.

It was January 23 by the time Emily was stable enough to return to Australia. Unbelievably, it was on the plane that she regained movement in her right leg.

“Mum and I just started crying,” she says.

The former café manager continued to work hard in rehab in Melbourne, until she was able to go home with her parents to Albury, NSW, in mid-march, having regained enough strength in her legs to stand. But she still had to use a frame because she wasn’t able to put any weight on her right foot.

“In Peru they had just bandaged both my feet up, so when I got to the States they realised that there was a huge pressure wound on the right one and it had started rotting away from the inside,” Emily explains.

It made things more difficult, but Emily set herself a goal to be able to take her first steps by her birthday in April, and that’s just what she did, with the help of her parents on either side.

“By August I could finally stand without the walker, using arm crutches. And by this stage I’d started riding a yellow tricycle to build up my leg strength,” she says, continuing to set small monthly goals for herself.

“Speaking to my doctors from California I’m 12 months ahead of where they ever thought I would be. Even though I can’t stand on my right foot I’ve just been working out ways to build strength everywhere else.”

This week Emily is finally having surgery on that foot because the pressure sore is healed. So once recovered she will be able to finally walk completely unaided and normally for the first time in over 1.5 years.

“When you think you’re going to die you think about a lot and I realised I had so many incredible people in my life and I’m so blessed. They were my motivation to get better,” Emily says.

The accident has changed her whole outlook on life and she now wants to become a motivational speaker and share her story to inspire others.

“I want to give people hope, that if they’ve been in a similar situation to just push through. I had a really dark period, where I didn’t know if I’d walk again. I just want others to know you can come out the other side.”

You can follow Emily's progress on her blog When Life Gives You Lemons.

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