Olivia Corbiere: "I was given a 5% chance of survival after horror ski crash"

The 23-year-old, from Aston, Rotherham, was placed in an induced coma and medics gave her just a five per cent chance of survival.

But three months since the horrific accident on Sunday, March 17, she is back playing football, about to jet off on holiday and preparing to return to her job as a kitchen designer.

She and her mum Linzi spoke to The Star about her remarkable recovery and their gratitude for the care and support shown by friends, medical staff and even complete strangers.

“I have no memory of the crash, or even the day it happened,” she said.

“The last thing I remember was the night before. I’d gone back to the hotel room with my friend Laura at around 8.30pm and the rest of the girls got in at around 3.30am. One of them had picked up a ham and cheese sandwich on the way back and she said ‘you have to try this, it’s the nicest thing ever’, so I did and it was disgusting.

“I remember saying ‘come on, we’re skiing tomorrow, get to bed’.

“The next thing I remember is being in bed at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital about five-and-a-half weeks later.

Flashbacks

“I do get occasional flashbacks, like when I was being moved from ICU to the general ward I remember lying on my bed in the lift and looking up at the little circles on the ceiling.

“My friends told me what happened that day. We weren’t even on the slopes, just on a ski path that children go down, but the snow was very slushy.

“I went past Georgia, said ‘hi’ and then just went off. Little did the others know it was a massive drop down a ravine.

“My right ski crossed over my left one, making me lose control, and because the snow was so slushy I wasn’t able to turn out of it like I normally would.”

Gratitude

Olivia and her mum Linzi believe she owes her life to the actions of her younger sister Phoebe and their friends who were on the skiing holiday in Bansko, Bulgaria, with them.

Three of them jumped into the ravine to help her out, risking their own safety to do so, while the others called the emergency services.

Olivia is an experienced skier and her mum said she would have been more worried for her daughter’s safety had she been going on holiday to somewhere like Magaluf.

But they still don’t understand why there was no barrier between the ski path and the ravine at that spot.

They are touched by how their friends, the local community in Aston, just outside Sheffield, and even complete strangers rallied round as Olivia battled for her life.

Friends and neighbours took care of things back home, so Linzi and Olivia’s dad, Seb, could fly out to be with her in Bulgaria, where she was also joined by her boyfriend Ben.

And well-wishers donated more than £27,000 to a fundraising appeal set up to ensure Olivia and her family didn’t have to worry about medical bills or the cost of flights and accommodation.

“I don’t remember anything about those first five-and-a-half weeks, but when I first understood what had happened, the first thing I asked was ‘how is everybody’ because I knew what they must have been through,” said Olivia.

“When something like this happens you realise who your friends are, and I’m just so grateful to everyone for all their support.”

Olivia’s family feared that even if she did pull through, she would never be able to walk or talk again.

But the speed of her recovery has stunned everyone.

She still has a head sore, some bruising and cannot fully open her right eye, and she may need a hearing aid as she struggles to hear high-pitched sounds in one ear.

‘I’ve just been so lucky’

However, the short term memory loss she experienced at first is almost completely gone and the big Sheffield Wednesday fan recently returned to football training and hopes to be back driving soon.

The accident has not put her off skiing, and she and her family are planning another trip to Bansko next year.

Olivia is remarkably sanguine, given everything she’s been through.

“I’ve just been so lucky with how quickly I’ve been able to recover,” she said. “It shows how much you can achieve when you have great people around you supporting you.

“You could sit at home feeling sad and sorry for yourself, but that’s not going to help.

“I might have to wear a hearing aid in one ear but that’s nothing compared to what could have happened. I could have broken every bone in my body and I could have been paralysed for life.”

‘Living hell’

Linzi, who is hugely grateful to the medics in Bulgaria and at the Northern General and Royal Hallamshire hospitals in Sheffield, never thought Olivia would make such a quick recovery.

“Those first weeks were a living hell and you couldn’t see an end to it,” she said.

“Even once she was back in the UK, it felt like there were going to be months and months of hard work before Olivia was back to anything like her old self.

“But it was like a switch suddenly flicked and since then her recovery’s been miraculous.”