Broken neck from rock plunge won't stop me climbing again

Thomas Hurst, 19, was bed-bound in hospital for nearly a week after the horror fall.

The plucky teenager is now back on his feet and has vowed to get back to climbing after being told he will make a full recovery.

Thomas was one of four experienced rock climbers who travelled to Fife last Wednesday to scale Rosyth Quarry. Thomas, from Gifford in East Lothian, had climbed about 12ft up the rock face when he fell and crashed heavily on to a large boulder below.

Despite being harnessed in ropes, his safety equipment failed when a protective 'nut' slipped out sending him spiralling towards the ground.

He said: "I knew I had done something pretty bad because my back was going numb. There was quite a bit of time when I was thinking the worst - that maybe I wouldn't be able to walk again. When I got to Queen Margaret Hospital in Fife doctors would not let me move anything and I was strapped down for a few days."

The teenager's parents broke off a trip to the Lake District where they were celebrating his father's birthday to be at his bedside.

The 19-year-old Heriot Watt undergraduate, added: "I went for nine X-rays and a CT scan, the results of which had to be sent to Glasgow for analysis.

"That took a while to come back so I had a few days to think about what could potentially be wrong. I was able to wriggle my toes and had feeling in my legs which was comforting but it was quite a relief when they said I would be ok."

Thomas suffered two fractures in his neck and two at the bottom of his spine in the fall. "I knew there was potential for me to be seriously injured," he said. "When I was lying in the quarry all my mates were all very good. We are all trained in first aid and no-one panicked."

Paramedics were on the scene within 10 minutes of the accident and two fire crews were called to strap the injured climber to a spine board and carry him out of the quarry.

David Somerville, Fife Fire and Rescue group manager, said he feared the teenager had damaged his spine.

"He had a couple of lacerations to his arm and said he had a sensation of pins and needles, all that points to a possible spinal injury," he said.

"We got him onto a spine board and the difficulty was getting him down to the ambulance - it was over hard ground and quite rutted and we had to try to keep him level."

Thomas is expected to return to full fitness in six weeks.