Staring up at the bright hospital lights above her bed, Juli Hogg felt tears snake down her face.
She wanted to wipe them away, but couldn’t. A grim-faced doctor had just explained she was now paralysed and it was unlikely she would ever walk again.
Juli had broken her back in four places, partially severed her spinal cord, broken several ribs and had internal bleeding. The fact she was still alive was a miracle.
An experienced rider, she had been out near her home when the horse she was riding bolted, then stumbled, tipping Juli to the ground before it trampled her.
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“I knew I was badly hurt because I couldn’t move, but when the hospital doctor told me he doubted I would ever walk again I was stunned, then angry,” says Juli, 54, who has two children.
“I had a family and they needed me. I would walk again.”
The horrific accident happened in September 2020. Thankfully, a dog walker and fellow rider saw what happened and one called an ambulance while the other rang Juli’s family.
“I wasn’t in pain, but I couldn’t move,” says Juli. “I knew my legs were in a weird position.
I felt a strange warmth all over my body, then nothing. I was numb.”
Paramedics blue-lighted her to Hull Royal Infirmary, where she was met by her husband Simon, 54, son Jackson, 25, and daughter, Eve, 23. “I was so scared, but there was nothing I could do but wait and hope,” she says.
Covid meant the family had to stay outside while her doctor explained Juli had damaged vertebra C1, C3, C4 and T6.
Despite the news, medics felt she had been incredibly lucky: C1 vertebrae injuries usually leave patients requiring a ventilator.
Thirty-five people suffer a spinal injury each week in the UK, and there are around 50,000 people living with spinal cord injuries in the country.
Juli was sedated and transferred to intensive care to be stabilised for surgery.
Two weeks later, she was moved out of ICU, but she and her doctor shunned surgery in favour of a conservative management approach.
She would be supported flat on her back in a brace so her spine could repair without an operation.
“It was a risk, but so was surgery,” says Juli. “One wrong move and it could be worse, not better. I decided to let nature do her best.”
Two weeks later, she was transferred to a specialist rehabilitation spinal unit at Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield.
“I’d always been able to just about wiggle my toes – that gave me hope that maybe one day I would walk again, even though it seemed impossible,” she says.
Her injuries meant Juli couldn’t feed herself, sit up or wash – she was totally reliant on the nursing staff. The pandemic meant all visitors were banned – her family only able to see her through a ward window.
“I had some desperately low points where it seemed like everything was too hard,” she recalls. “I was too weak. I had to relearn everything – my body had forgotten it all.”
Despite daily physio, her progress was slow and she feared her paralysed body had been beaten into submission.
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The first time the rehab team elevated her mechanical bed so she was lying in an upright position, she vomited then fainted.
A few days later, they tried again and this time she managed 10 minutes – it was a start.
“Every day brought little milestones, whether that was the smallest movement in my arm, or a feeling in my leg, every sensation mattered,” she says.
“Simon and the kids would come to see me through the window on the ward and I’d show them what I could do.”
Four months after her accident, on January 22, with a walking frame for support and a rehab nurse either side of her, Juli took her first very wobbly step.
“That was a very emotional day,” she says. “I cried, the nurses cried and we all hugged each other.”
Still a long way from any kind of independence, after a month in the unit, she was discharged to continue her rehabilitation at home.
Back in Ellerton, near York, Juli started three sessions a week with a team of musculoskeletal and neurological physiotherapists at Flex Health in Hull.
From being in a wheelchair to being able to stand unaided, she made steady progress.
In March, she launched a fundraiser on Facebook to be sponsored to walk 1,000 steps a day for a month to raise money for the spinal injury charity that supported her in hospital.
“It was a challenge – some days doing it nearly killed me,” she says. “But I wanted to do something for people who had helped me.”
She recorded her daily steps and raised £4,100.
Her determination has amazed her family, her doctor and her physiotherapists. Last month, she went back to see her original A&E consultant. “I walked into his office and he couldn’t believe it was me,” she recalls. “I couldn’t stop smiling.
“Physically I will never be the woman I was before, but every step I take is for my family – I couldn’t have done it without them.
“Ultimately I want to go back to the spinal rehab unit as a charity volunteer to show other patients there’s hope. I was like them and I’m walking again.”
- For help and support with spinal injuries go to spinal.co.uk
Juli is raising funds to help SURF (Spinal Unit Recreational Fund) who raise money for the staff and patients at Pinderfield's Spinal Unit in Yorkshire. To make a donation visit Just Giving and search Juli Hogg, crowdfunding and Pinderfield's Spinal Unit.
