THE parents of a Scottish Judo star who suffered life-threatening injuries in a motorcycle accident in Vietnam have told of the horror moment when doctors informed them she was unlikely to survive.
Stephanie Inglis was given a one in a 100 chance of surviving by doctors because of the severity of head injuries she received when she fell from the back of a moving motorbike in Hanoi.
Her parents Robert and Alison flew to be at her bedside, and have revealed for the first time during a tearful interview with Ranvir Singh of ITV's Real Stories programme that they were at first unaware of the seriousness of her injuries.
I was only when a doctor, who spoke little English, showed them scans of the damage done to their daughter's brain that the awful truth became apparent.
Robert Inglis said: "The doctor told us to come over and look at the scans, and he just looked at it and said 'fusion and brain trauma. No chance'. Nothing'.
"We just about fainted."
Alison Inglis added: "There was someone waiting at the airport for us and they whisked us straight away to this office to sign forms to take liability.
"You can't breath. Every breath is painful to take in because you are so scared. You're petrified in case they say 'oh, I'm sorry'.
"I remember this cold sweat over me. I went numb. My fingers, everything was tingling. I sat there and just thought "no". I went back out and just said to the doctor "No, don't let her die."
The Commonwealth Games silver medallist, who travelled to Vietnam to teach children English, is now recovering in Scotland after beating incredible odds to pull through.
A massive fundraising campaign spearheaded by fellow judoka Khalid Gehlan and both their families helped provide crucial medical treatment and transport to bring her home to Scotland last month.
She is continuing her recovery at Cameron Hospital, near Leven in Fife, and due to be released soon.
The 27-year-old said: "The hardest thing is when I finally woke up in Edinburgh. It was people telling me what had happened, saying that i had been in an motorbike accident. I just had no memory of anything.
"All my therapists are really pleased with how I'm, improving and it is fast recovery, although to me it seems slow. I'm just getting more confidence in myself knowing I can do it and pushing myself on ever day.
"It's probably because I have a sporting background. I am always always pushing myself to be the best I can be in my judo career, and I guess that's just carried on with other obstacles in life like this. The quicker I get better the quicker I can get home and back to normal."
Both she and her parents paid tribute to the fundraising effort which swung into gear after it emerged that her travel insurance would not cover her substantial medical bills.
Ms Inglis said: "It's crazy. It's another thing I can't get my head around - all those people who donated and sent well wishes. If it wasn't for them, I might not be here today."
Alison Inglis added: "People are amazing. There's so much horror in the world, and the fact that people came together, they did save her life. They created this miracle."
*Real Stories With Ranvir Singh is on ITV tonight at 7.30pm on Thursday.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here