A champion skier who was told she may never walk again following a bus crash in Peru has returned to the slopes once again.
Pamela Robb, 27, from Aberdeen, is a former medal winner of the Scottish Alpine Team and member of the British youth racing team, but she was told she faced lifelong disability following the accident last summer.
Last June, Ms Robb met up with two friends who were in south America on an extended holiday, but the coach they were in veered off the road, plunging into a ravine close to the Urubamba Valley on the famous Inca Trail.
The crash killed her flatmate, Ursula Hagan, 30, and the bus driver and conductor. Ms Robb's friend Janet Bloomfield, 30, was seriously injured along with a dozen other passengers.
Part of Ms Robb's spinal chord was severed in the accident, leaving her to recover in a Peruvian hospital for five weeks before she could be safely transported home.
It will take two years to find out if intensive therapy will return full movement to the young woman who was forging a successful career as an event planner in London at the time of the accident.
But yesterday she was able to feel the thrill of life on the slopes once again thanks to equipment and training being pioneered at Braehead's indoor SNO!zone complex. A single ski carries her in seated position, with short poles moving her through the route.
She said: "This has given me some of my passion back. The thought of being left in the house while everyone else was out skiing was really terrible.
"Skiing is something that the family has always done together. It is really a big part of our lives, and has been since we were children.
"Using the equipment here has been great. You get the same adrenaline, the same rush, as if you were on regular skis and it is great to feel that speed again."
Ms Robb has now returned home to live with her parents in Aberdeen and is able to work at home, keeping the same job as she had before the accident.
She frequently travels to see her boyfriend and her sister Claire, a student at Glasgow University, and can walk with the aid of a stick.
Therapy should rejuvenate the nerves in her calves and feet, which she described as "quite floppy" after suffering from the spinal injury.
Ms Robb had wanted to go travelling with her friends but could not take the four months off work, deciding instead to join them for two-and-a-half weeks so they could embark on the Inca Trail together.
She said: "We had been having the time of our lives and after two weeks we had completed the trail. But then the bus crash happened and our lives changed forever.
"I was squashed and couldn't move while Janet was unconscious because she hit her head. It was only Ursula who was able to walk off the bus and she helped to get Janet and I off safely.
"But after the crash Ursula began suffering fits and she died a month later as a result of a blood clot in her lungs. I was devastated. I was eventually flown home to Scotland but I was warned I may never walk again. Then I was told that I would never ski again. I was so upset."
James Cufflin is the tutor taking Pamela back to the slopes at Braehead with the support of Disability NowSportUK.
He said: "What many people don't realise is that anyone, regardless of their disability, can take part in snowsports. When Pamela had her accident, she feared that she would never ski again.
"But her determination enabled her to get back on the slopes using adaptive equipment just months after leaving hospital and she is improving at a fantastic rate.
"She's a real inspiration to other youngsters with disabilities who would not have believed they could get to the top of a mountain, let alone ski down one."
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