A FOOTBALL fanatic, whose future was threatened by a potentially life-changing injury, will throw herself 15,000-feet into freefall to thank the medical staff who saved her ankle.

Rebecca Smith, a medical engineering administrator at Furness General Hospital in Barrow, will take part in a skydive next Saturday (16), to support the Morecambe Bay Hospitals Charity.

The 24-year-old, of Walney, is raising money for the hospital which gave her back the ability to walk long before she ever knew she might one day work there.

Miss Smith underwent ankle surgery when she was just 17 and, after years in recovery, was able to travel to the USA last summer to spend three months coaching childrens’ football.

Miss Smith said: “A lot of people are saying, ‘Are you fundraising for the hospital because you work for them?’ but not a lot of people know how bad my foot was. I’m doing it because I genuinely believe that the care they provide made me able to live my dream.”

Miss Smith was 16 when she hurt her ankle in an accident on some steps, and as time went by her injury only got worse.

She said: “My main thing was always sport. I was either playing football, coaching football or watching football. Then I picked up the injury. “My ankle didn’t heal properly - it just got worse and worse - and because of that it caused further damage. I was on crutches for months.

“Even my everyday life was massively affected. Things like walking into town or around a supermarket, I couldn’t do it.”

After months of investigations and physiotherapists appointments, doctors conceded that Miss Smith’s only chance of recovery lay in an operation.

Consultants warned her the pain may only improve by five or 10 per cent, she could lose the ability to walk unaided, and her chances of playing sport again were extremely slim.

Opting to take the risk, Miss Smith underwent surgery in September 2009, aged 17.

Doctors shaved one of her joints, removed a muscle sheath, and trimmed scar tissue damage from her tendons. After months of physiotherapy, training her ankle to walk again, she took her tentative first steps back into football early in 2011 and played her first competitive game three and a half years after being injured.

Last September, she began coaching under-14s at Barrow AFC Performance Centre, after a girl’s team was introduced for the first time.

Now Miss Smith wants to thank FGH for putting her back on her feet.

Of the skydive, she said: “I’m trying not to think about it, to be honest. I imagine on the day I might need a nappy!”

Visit https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/rebeccadsmith1992 to support Miss Smith.