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A woman has taken her first steps just three months after plunging 40ft and sustaining horrific injuries. Sophie Bracken, 23, fell from a fourth-floor balcony during a party earlier this year, breaking her back, pelvis, legs and ankle, which shattered in 30 places. Doctors feared she was permanently paralysed after she landed on her back, but Ms Bracken has defied expectations by taking her first steps at home in Bradford this week.

She was taken to Manchester Royal Infirmary after she fell from her friend’s flat on September 4 and later transferred to Greater Manchester Major Trauma Centre (MTC), where she waited alone.

Speaking to the SWNS news agency, Ms Bracken said she felt her mind “blocked out a lot of the pain and feelings I had at the time” due to stress and trauma.

She added: “I remember hitting the ground and feeling my back break.

“I remember worrying more about my family and how I was going to get in touch with my mum, rather than my injuries.”

Her mother, Rachel Clapman, 60, couldn’t make the six-hour return journey home via public transport or afford a hotel.

But she eventually arrived by her daughter’s bedside and stayed with her during her five-week hospital stay.

Ms Clapman, a nurse at Bradford Royal Infirmary, made all the difference in her recovery.

Ms Bracken said: “The moment mum got to me, was a sense of comfort. I had a feeling that everything will be OK, even though everything wasn’t OK.”

“Having my mum there impacted my recovery in such a positive way. I don’t think I could have got through it without having my family with me.

“The care I received was fantastic. I was lucky to be in one of the best hospitals in the country.

“But once you leave the nurses on the ward, you do feel on your own and that you have to put things in place yourself.”

Ms Clapman’s vital support was part-funded by the charity Day One Trauma Support, which helped her stay in a hotel near the hospital.

The charity also provided the family with emotional support and put them in touch with other organisations to help Ms Bracken recover post-hospital.

Day One Trauma Support, which is wholly dependent on donations, helps people who sustain severe injuries after crashes, falls or stabbings.

Ms Clapman said the charity made “such a positive impact” on her daughters’ recovery.

She said: “The emergency funding came at the right time. It meant I could stay in Manchester.”

“I was able to give Sophie so much more support, knowing I only had a six-minute bus ride back to the hotel.

“If Day One hadn’t have been there, it would have been a different story.”

She added: “Sophie still has a long way to go. But the support we continue to receive from Day One is making such a positive impact on her recovery.”

Ms Bracken said she would “encourage anyone to donate to Day One and help them be there for other people like me”.

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