The sound of my own spine breaking is something I still can't get out of my head, even three weeks after the accident. It was a lot like a butcher's cleaver hacking through a carcass, but somehow more succulent - like a ripe watermelon being split in half.
For several days afterwards I was in shock, and flashbacks made me sob with nausea. Of course, it could have been worse, I thought - being devoured by hyenas, say, or having an arm ripped off by a threshing machine. But the sound of muscle and bone tearing apart is still pretty good at hammering home what we all know, but rarely fully appreciate - how life can change for ever, or even end, in a split second.
It was the end of the last day of a skiing holiday in Andorra, and we were coming down an easy blue run I'd negotiated dozens of times before. I don't really know how or why I fell because everything happened so quickly. All I can remember is flip ping over and landing heavily on the back of my neck, my legs and skis crashing down on top of me with incredible force.
The pain was so intense that I could hardly breathe, and I just kept gasping: "Oh my God! I've broken my back!" over and over again in a strange kind of strangled shriek which didn't sound like me.
My first thought was of the only person I had ever met with a broken spine - a grey-faced, stick-like orphan called Moise who was slowly starving to death in a Romanian hospital. After years of lying in bed, paralysed and almost untreated, gaping bedsores had eaten away both his buttocks right to the bone. His body was using up all the energy it had in a hopeless attempt to heal them.
Although I could still move my toes, I was terrified that I might be paralysed if anyone tried to move me. Through my trendy ski shades, which had remained smugly intact, I watched the ashen faces of the other people in my group as they erected a fence of crossed skis around me, covered me in jackets, and lamely tried to convince me I'd probably only slipped a disc.
After what seemed like hours, the rescue team arrived to truss me up on their bright orange inflatable sledge and drag me away humiliatingly slowly below the chairlifts, full of skiers craning their necks to gawp at the casualty.
No one has ever accused me of outlandish optimism, but my life truly did seem shattered. My boyfriend and I had been planning to move abroad within a few weeks, but now all I could see stretching ahead of me was, at best, months of orthopaedic beds, wheelchairs and physiotherapists.
In hospital, X-rays showed a compression fracture of the first lumbar vertebra, which is just below the ribs. Vertebrae are spongy bones and tend to squash rather than actually breaking. Mine had been crushed to around 70 per cent of its original height which meant that I might end up shorter.
More seriously, the top of the bone had also sheared off extremely close to the spinal cord - so I was amazed when I was told I could make a full recovery within 12 weeks. The break was stable, meaning it would not suddenly move and sever the cord, but the doctors stressed how lucky I had been. As one of them put it: "Broken bone is razor sharp, and the spinal cord is like a piece of spaghetti."
The difference between stable and unstable fractures can be devastating, as illustrated by the cases of Bert Trautmann, the Manchester City goalie, and ex-Superman actor Christopher Reeve. Both broke their necks, but while Trautmann managed to play on to the end of an FA Cup final, Reeve was left a quadriplegic.
Wobbling, unstable fractures are relatively uncommon, but any slight movement, such as turning in bed, can cause neural damage to parts of the body below the break. Before the days of surgically fixing these fractures, patients had to lie absolutely motionless for up to three months waiting for the bone to heal.
Despite my good prognosis, I had to be kept under observation for a few days as spinal injuries can also cause serious paralysis of the digestive tract and urinary system.
I found something perversely liberating in being forced to relinquish control over my life - which was now reduced to staring at the ceiling, watching atrocious Spanish TV game shows, being washed, fed plates of quivering hospital mush, and injected with painkillers and blood-thinning drugs to prevent the formation of clots. The insomnia I had suffered for months disappeared overnight, and every time my boyfriend appeared he was pleasingly laden with truffles, CDs and perfume.
I was not allowed to move without a back brace to support my spine. The Spanish doctors called this a corset, so I imagined a kind of metallic insect exoskeleton styled by Agent Provocateur. The disappointing reality was a frame of deeply naff, and incredibly uncomfortable, white reinforced plastic.
Once it was fitted, I gingerly tried to stand up. As I'd also torn a ligament in my knee, this was pretty agonising. Being unable to bend either my leg or back gave me the gait of a giraffe at a watering hole - but even so, it seemed nothing short of a miracle to be walking around only a few days after breaking my back.
I was flown back to the UK and transported by ambulance to my parents' home (thank God for insurance), where sleeping on lumpy Victorian mattresses drove me almost insane with agony. An ill-advised sneeze made me sure I'd rebroken the bone, and the strongest prescription painkillers had no effect. My mother dosed me with Dr Bach's res cue remedy, cod liver oil, pineapple juice (supposedly containing an enzyme to help mend broken bone), hot milk, and even enlisted a faith healer to try to heal me from afar.
At Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, where I was sent to a fracture clinic, I was surprised to learn that out of the 2,300 or so fractures treated each year, only about 10 are broken backs. Most of these are due to falls from a height, car accidents, rugby or osteoporosis, which can often be caused by steroid treatment.
Dr Maher Halawa, a senior orthopaedic consultant surgeon, says: "It's actually surprisingly difficult to break the back, because it's so well supported by muscles.
"The number of cases has also fallen over the years due to the increased use of seat belts in cars, hormone replacement therapy, and improved psychiatric counselling. Less people are now trying to commit suicide by jumping off tall buildings."
While a broken back can occasionally be devastating, Dr Halawa says a stable fracture is actually much less problematic than some breaks in other parts of the body, such as the neck or the femur. This has a poor blood supply, can take six months to mend, and carries a serious risk of blood clotting.
With my bravery so roundly pooh-poohed, the pain slowly deteriorated within a week to nothing more than a mild ache, punctuated by the occasional worrying crunch. Now I must just lie down as much as possible for the next month or so - and am left suffering from nothing more than tedium. I would never have believed it, but there really is a limited appeal to lying around eating chocolate biscuits and reading magazines.
A broken back is a strange thing. It sounds dangerous, and definitely has more kudos than piles or an ingrowing toenail. But after all the drama and dark fears, I now find myself suffering probably less discomfort than people with either of these less glamorous conditions. It makes me feel a bit of a fraud - but a very lucky fraud.
