A nurse practitioner wants to find the paramedics who treated her when she feared she was paralysed after an accident.

Kath Ryan, 50, from Chester, suffered two broken vertebrae in her neck when she fell off a swinging bench in her garden on June 12.

She was taken to the Royal Liverpool Hospital and told the outcome of an operation the next day was uncertain.

Now Kath is back recovering, but she has never been able to thank the emergency services who came to her aid.

She said: “I really want to try to find out who the ambulance crew who responded were, I’ve tried phoning up, but that didn’t work.

“I would just like to let them know how thankful I am for helping me.”

Her partner Sean Gammon, 47, is taking part in Man vs Mountain, a 20-mile run over Snowdon, to raise money for the Royal.

Kath instantly knew something was wrong after falling off a swinging bench in her garden.

She said: “I couldn’t move and I thought I was paralysed, but I had to stay still in the same position.

“I was really scared and could feel shooting pains going down my arm.”

Sean phoned for an ambulance, but because of the nature of the injury Kath had to be treated with care.

She said: “The paramedics must’ve spent an hour trying to stabilise me so they could put me on a board and move me properly. All the while I was shouting and very anxious.

“If they hadn’t been as good and as patient with me then I would’ve been paralysed.”

After being taken to the Royal Liverpool Hospital, Kath was told the doctors needed to act quickly.

She said: “They weren’t sure what the outcome would be before the operation the next day, I could still have been left with some partial paralysis.

“Afterwards the consultant showed me the MRI scan and the two broken bones had been resting right on my spinal cord.

“I was just so lucky.”

Now back at home, Kath is walking again and is being helped through the recovery by the Royal.

The nurse practitioner hopes to be fully fit within a year and back working much sooner.

She said: “I’m hoping to be back to work in a month. I’m quite determined, I liked to keep fit before the accident and the consultant said my muscle strength really helped.

“We were training for Tough Mudder together before my accident and Sean didn’t want to do it without me.”

Sean, an IT consultant, instead chose to take on the Man vs Mountain run on September 5.

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