A DUNFERMLINE student survived a horror fall after slamming into concrete from a second-floor hotel balcony in Cyprus.

The Press broke the story excusively on Thursday after Rachel Walker (21) broke her neck, fractured a rib and suffered serious spinal injuries at the Napa Prince hotel in Ayia Napa this summer. The story then appeared in the national papers on Friday.

She was left immobilised in hospital for two weeks before she could return to Scotland for further treatment.

Brave Rachel is now recovering at home in Knapphill and this week spoke exclusively to the Press about her trauma.

She said, "I remember the entire thing until I hit the ground. There were five people in the room at the time and I was on the second floor of the hotel. "It was a low balcony. Someone was shouting on me from outside the hotel grounds, I went running over and underestimated the height of the balcony.

"I fell about 25 feet onto solid concrete. All my friends came down and said my eyes were rolling to the back of my head."

Rachel had arrived in Ayia Napa with a friend a month earlier for a summer job in a bar.

Her anxious parents, Anne and John, flew out to help arrange her return home.

"I was in hospital out there for two weeks, completely immobilised, before I was stretchered back to the UK, so it was quite traumatic," continued Rachel.

"I didn't realise how severe the situation was until I got back, because of the language barrier.

"I've never broken a bone in my life before. The doctors were all saying, 'You go the full way don't you!'."

Due to the seriousness of her injuries, she has had to defer the final year of her fashion business degree at Glasgow Caledonian University.

She currently wears a brace and is able to walk only short distances.

"The neurosurgeon said it would be too much for me. There is still a risk the neck fracture can displace so I could still need an operation."

Rachel has remained busy, starting a new trainer design business with sister-in-law Emma Walker.

Last month a campaign was launched to try to reduce the number of young people injured and killed by falls from balconies while on holiday.

So far this year three British people have been killed and 10 injured after falling from a balcony abroad.

Alcohol was named as a factor in many of the falls. Rachel was sober at the time of her accident.