“I saw the most enormous wave, I can only describe it as like a big
tongue of water,” she said.
“It was quite narrow but very very tall … it was so big it tipped the
boat onto its nose and then the wave broke all over the boat.
“Basically I had a big metal bar behind my back and a big metal cage
across my front; so yes I was pinned by the water, which was very scary.
“I remember thinking at the time I’ve broken my back, which as it turned
out I had.
“I was underwater and I remember screaming, so I must at least have been
breathing out … and as the wave retracted I was sucked out from the space
I was squashed in and was rolled down towards the back of the boat.
“I don’t know what I hit where, I was grasping onto whatever I could
hold.
“I had two lifelines on … and they held me completely so I didn’t go
over the back of the boat.
“I thought I was drowning … that did go on for an awful long time, I
didn’t think I was going to come up.
“Yes it was a big wave, but there were thousands of other big waves out
there, that one just had our name on it.”
She later heard the coast guard ask the yacht’s skipper if she would last 24
hours.
“That was pretty scary because I suddenly realised that was serious
stuff.
“So I told myself, ‘of course I’m going to survive 24 hours’ … but
that was a frightening question to hear.”
She said she was relieved to be alive, but had been “salvaged” in
tears by a nurse after realising it could have been a lot worse.
“First of all it’s relief that you’re alive, then it’s relief that
you’re sprung onto a coast guard vessel, then it’s a relief that you’re in
hospital.
“But I had quite a difficult night last night when I realised, not for
the first time that actually … it could have been an awful lot worse.”
Two other injured crew members – Max Wilson, 62, a farmer from Queensland,
Australia, and Mark Burkes, 47, from Worcestershire – were deemed well
enough to stay on the yacht after the wave swept away its steering wheel and
mount and some of its communications equipment in storm conditions.
The rest of the 18-strong crew on the boat were said to be uninjured but
shaken.
The 40,000-mile race, which features predominantly amateur crews, started in
Southampton in July last year and is due to return to the city in July this
year.
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