A mum is unable to walk or talk after smashing her head falling down three steps in a freak accident.
Tracey Wishart-Jones, 51, suffered devastating head injuries, including a shattered skull, and has had to have part of her brain removed by surgeons.
The mother-of-one, who is also a step-mum to seven children, was on a night out with her brother in Cornwall when she tumbled down the steps.
Now Tracey is unable to speak and walk, Liverpool Echo reports.
However, she is making slow steps on her long road of recovery.
"I fell down three stairs and smashed the front of my head in. It was so bad that I managed to bash the back of my head as well.
"Parts of my skull shattered into my brain," Tracey, from Knowsley, Merseyside, said.
Doctors operated on the mum at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth after the accident.
She spent the next eight weeks in a coma with her family by her side.
Recalling the 2001 trauma, Tracy added: "When I woke up I didn't remember a lot. I only know what happened to me because I was told.
"I couldn't speak after the accident. It was so strange. I didn't know whether it was a mental block that was stopping me from speaking. At the time I didn't know."
Tracey was later transferred to Aintree Hospital where she began her rehabilitation.
She was sent to the Younger Rehabilitation Unit (YRU) where she worked on regaining the brain function she'd lost.
She said: "I remember when my mum used to take me out a walk in my wheelchair while I was at the hospital.
"While I was at the YRU I basically learned to walk again. I worked with a physiotherapist for months to get to a point where I could walk unaided.
"It took me two months before I could walk again. I'm still a bit wary of walking long distances and places that I don't know.
"When I couldn't talk I had to scribble on a pad to answer questions but it was difficult because I couldn't write in sentences
"I had to learn to read again. I could read some things but not everything.
"I had a tracheostomy so I couldn't eat. They had to pulverise all my food. It took me three months to even eat properly again.
"The dent in my head used to pulsate before I had surgery. I had to have bone from the top of my skull grated on."
She also spoke about the long term impacts of her injury that still affect her to this day, saying: "I have a lot of different health problems that stem back to the injury.
"I get double vision, I have no sense of smell, I developed epilepsy, and I have carpal tunnel syndrome.
"When they had to cut the front of my head it also affected my emotions.
"Lots of things make me cry. They're often joyous things or ridiculous things.
"If someone sings to anyone it makes me cry. Sometimes the stupidest things on TV make me cry.
"My mum and the children call me 'tiny tears' because of it."
Tracey said the support of her loving family helped her through the darkest times, telling the ECHO: "It was great to know that they were with me and they were there to make sure that nothing else happened to me.
"If it wasn't for my mum's determination I might not be here. The doctors asked her if she wanted to turn off my life support.
"But mum always told them that I was a fighter and that I'd pull through.
"My daughter was 10 at the time and my mum looked after her while I was in hospital.
"When I woke up I remember my auntie saying that dad was looking down on me from above. "
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