I started pole dancing in 2015. It’s my happy place, and makes me feel free and empowered. But the sport I adore so much nearly cost me my life.

I was learning a new move in 2016, an upside down arch that is just about as hard as it sounds. It involves hanging, inverted, with your hands above your head; only the back of one thigh is holding you on the pole.

I wanted to document my progress. I gave my sister my phone to take a picture, and prepared to hold the move. I suddenly lost my grip, and before I knew it, I landed on my neck and was on the floor. I panicked. I couldn’t feel a thing from the neck down – I knew immediately that I was paralysed.

My sister called for an ambulance and I was rushed to the nearby hospital in Johannesburg, where they confirmed a spinal injury. The fall had burst a vertebra in my neck. I was in total disbelief. I kept thinking I was in a dream, and that I needed to shake myself out of it. The rest of my family met us at the hospital. They were terrified.

The hospital couldn’t get hold of the neurosurgeon within the limited time needed to operate, so I was airlifted to a second hospital, also in the city, with a dedicated team of neurosurgeons.

I was bed-bound. They had to remove the fragmented pieces of the broken vertebra in my neck and replace it with metal. My family and I were warned that they didn’t know what the outcome would be, and permanent paralysis from the neck down was possible.

I learned later that they had taken my family aside before the operation and told them there was a significant risk that I wouldn’t survive. As the spine injury was so high up, the anaesthetic could affect my diaphragm – meaning I’d be unable to breathe.

After waking from the surgery, I was placed in the ICU for a week and my brain went into overdrive. It was my 19th birthday week, too. They had physios assess me. My motion was extremely limited. I needed to relearn everything: walking, feeding myself, drinking from a bottle, using my phone, brushing my hair and teeth. I was mostly confined to my bed.

After seven days, I was taken to a rehabilitation facility. I was given a wheelchair and my family was taught how to help me in and out of it, but I was not able to move around by myself. After working with a team of physiotherapists and occupational therapists, I slowly began to regain movement.

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They would fetch me from my room daily and take me down to the gym. In the afternoons, there would be a group physio session with all the patients in the spinal cord unit. Sometimes we would do sports such as wheelchair basketball or games.

I felt overwhelmed, but the people around me were so supportive. My mum, dad and sister visited me every day, bringing home-cooked food. My dance studio held a fundraiser to help pay for some of the medical bills.

It might sound crazy, but I was determined to get back on the pole. I’d come so far in the sport and refused to let this injury stop me. About three and a half months later, the seemingly impossible happened. I regained enough movement and was able to go home and recover as an outpatient.

I have now managed to recover sufficiently to continue my dream. I perform as a ParaPole dancer, which is pole sports for people with disabilities. I was excited but nervous about getting back into it: I had lost a lot of strength and knew it would be difficult to build it up again. But mostly I was just happy to be back.

What happened to me is very rare – broken toes and grazes are common in the sport but this extent of injury isn’t a regular occurrence, so I wouldn’t want to put other people off. I haven’t tried the original move that caused the injury. Physically, it remains too difficult, but I also don’t feel mentally ready to try it.

My experience has made me more resilient; if I can get through that, nothing else can compare. Last year, at the World Pole and Aerial Championships, I won gold and my score broke the world record for ParaPole dancing. I had been working towards that for so long, and I am really proud of myself – it took a lot of hard work and dedication to get this far.

• As told to Elizabeth McCafferty

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