My boyfriend and I were enjoying an action-packed holiday until we hit the waterpark and slid right into trouble. By Courtney Gunn, 30
As a bright yellow parachute billowed above us, the stunning Cypriot coastline sprawled out below.
‘This is amazing!’ I bellowed to my boyfriend Andy, shouting above the wind as we soared hundreds of feet up in the air.
This was our second break as a couple after four years together.
Normally, our idea of holiday fun was sprawling on a sun lounger, but something had
us feeling adventurous.
After paragliding and snorkelling, we headed to a waterpark near our hotel and made a beeline for all the biggest, craziest slides.
After a few hours of thrills and spills, we were queuing for another huge slide when
I overheard a group of lads talking.
‘You go round and get shot out like a cannonball,’ one was saying, describing the Cannon Drop.
‘Let’s do that one, then head back to the hotel,’ I said to Andy.
So, after barrelling down the huge slide, we went in search of the Cannon Drop.
When we found it, we were underwhelmed. It was just two drab blue slides.
No wonder there was no one queuing to go on and no attendants in sight. But we went for it anyway.
‘I’ll race you to the bottom,’ I called to Andy, pushing myself off the lip.
I slid down fast, twisting in mid-air before being fired out of the end.
The side of my body hit the water hard and even over the deafening splash, I distinctly heard a pop.
Swallowed by the water, I thrashed until I surfaced and found Andy waiting.
'I'll race you to the bottom'
‘My leg’s gone,’ I panicked.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked.
‘I can’t really feel my right leg,’ I explained.
As I tried to swim to the side, my right leg wouldn’t move properly, so I doggy-paddled instead.
‘You need to try and stand up,’ Andy said when the water grew shallow.
‘I can’t,’ I insisted.
I wasn’t in pain, but my right knee was locked at a 90-degree angle!
Andy dashed off and returned with some first-aiders.
Hauled out of the water, on to a stretcher and paraded through the park, I was mortified.
‘Mum, what happened to that girl’s leg?’ a child asked, pointing at me.
After a trip to the medical bay, an ambulance arrived to take me to a local hospital.
‘Our stuff,’ Andy remembered, rushing back to the slides for our abandoned flip flops and bags.
I imagined we’d be back at the hotel laughing about all of this that night.
Instead, I was taken from one local hospital to another, given an MRI scan and an X-ray, then brought right back to the first hospital – all while still soaking wet and in my little yellow polka dot bikini!
Finally given a thin hospital robe, my bent knee jutted out underneath.
And now the shock had worn off, it throbbed agonisingly.
‘You’ve broken the bone under your kneecap,’ an orthopaedic surgeon said.
In broken English, he managed to explain that the force of hitting the water had caused a small break, but the biggest problem was something called a bucket handle tear.
‘Footballers get that,’ Andy chipped in helpfully.
I’d never heard of it but grasped from the doctor that it was a tear in the cartilage of the knee called the meniscus.
I could either fly home to Bristol and have surgery, risking the injury getting worse, or I could have the operation in Cyprus.
Luckily, we had travel insurance.
‘I’ll do it here,’ I agreed, scared at the prospect of navigating a plane with
a bent leg.
The next day, I was wheeled straight into the operating theatre.
‘I’m Dr George and this is also Dr George,’ one of the team said, pointing over at someone else.
My eyes slid from one man to the other and everything went dark.
Coming round, I was back in my hospital room and my leg was bandaged, bruised and straight!
‘It was too badly damaged to repair, so we had to remove your meniscus,’ the surgeon told me.
It seemed a small price to pay to have both feet back on solid ground.
‘Feels so good to finally get that chlorine off me,’ I sighed to Andy as he helped me shower.
He was amazing, never grumbling despite me ruining his holiday.
‘You just might be the one,’ I realised.
Three days on, I was discharged back to the hotel.
We’d missed our flight home, I was on crutches, couldn’t swim and the holiday had completely lost its shine, so I whiled away the hours reading on the balcony.
Eventually, four days after we had been due to leave,
I was signed off and shuffled to the airport.
I spent the flight with my bandaged leg resting on Andy’s lap.
‘You might not like it but imagine how I feel,’ I sighed.
Back home, after another few weeks on crutches,
I could finally walk normally again.
In fact, four years on, I walked right down the aisle to become Andy’s wife.
I still have occasional knee pain and have been advised
I may need a knee replacement by the time I’m 40. But, looking back, I laugh.
‘You would have thought it was the paragliding that would do it,’ I chuckle to friends, now the self-styled poster-woman for travel insurance.
Thanks to our coverage, every penny of the 25,000 euro bill was paid for.
My waterpark mishap could easily have cost an arm and a leg as well as a bit of my knee!