A young woman from Yorkshire has been placed in an induced coma after suffering severe injuries in a skiing accident in Bulgaria.
Olivia Corbiere, 23, needed emergency surgery on Tuesday after she fell around 15ft from a ski path into a ravine in Bansko on Sunday.
Friends managed to pull her from water before she was taken to hospital in Sofia, the nation’s capital. During an operation, surgeons removed part of her skull to help reduce bleeding on her brain. Olivia remains in a critical condition.
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Olivia’s mother Linzi, who has flown out to Bulgaria to be with her, said doctors had told her that she had never seen a head injury like it.
Olivia, who works as a kitchen designer and is from Aston, near Rotherham, also suffered a broken pelvis, eye socket, a broken nose, and three fractured vertebrae. Linzi said: “Olivia has just come out of surgery and the surgeon says they’ve never seen a head injury like it.
“The next few hours are critical and they’re going to wake her up tomorrow. They’re very strict in Bulgaria and we’re not able to sit by the bed or visit.
“But they did allow me to see her yesterday and I was able to speak to her and tell her we’re here for her. Her eyelashes flickered, so I know she heard me.”
Olivia celebrated her birthday last Tuesday and flew out to the resort of Chalin Valog with a group of friends, including her 19-year-old sister Phoebe on Friday. However, on Sunday, despite being an experienced skier, she came off the ski path and tumbled into a ravine.
She was taken to hospital and her distraught mum Linzi flew overseas on Monday, whilst her 51-year-old husband Seb, a train manager with the same firm, flew out last night to be by her side. It’s thought that Olivia’s younger bother, 22-year-old Morgan, will fly out later too. Linzi is staying in a nearby hotel and is relying on translators from the ski resort.
She said: “She’s not paralysed, they’ve assured us of that, because she was moving her limbs too much. That’s why they had to put her in an induced coma.
“We’ve just got to wait and see if they’ll let me be there when they wake her up tomorrow. I flew out yesterday morning and my husband flew out last night.
“The girls have been great, they’ve been shopping for us and made sure we had things we needed. We just flung a few things in a suitcase and flew out, we didn’t really know what to pack.
“I’m just sitting in a hotel, I need a translator to help me and we need to translate all the medical records into English for the insurance company.” There is a fundraising campaign to help Linzi and her family with the costs of travel, accommodation, and additional expenses.
So far more than £18,000 has been raised.
The Go Fund Me post states: “Any donations will be hugely appreciated to help fund the necessary care and treatment Olivia is going to need for her long road to recovery.”
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