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This episode was originally aired in 2023.

A note to listeners.

This episode contains adult language and content.

Please be advised.

From Wonderry, I'm Cassie de Peckle, and this is Against the Odds. Today, we bring you the story of London-based writer Claire Nelson.

In May of 2018, Claire was hiking alone in Southern California's Joshua Tree National Park. With its spiky namesake yucca trees, an endless horizon, the park was a refuge for Claire from city life and the

pressures of work. But on a seven-mile hike, she slipped while scrambling across a boulder and dropped 25 feet to the earth below.

Here's Claire, reading from her memoir about that moment.

I remember the sound my body made as it hit the ground, a sharp crack, one that cut through

the thump of my weight against the desert floor, then the white

heat of pain that stabbed through my body, escaping through my mouth in an almighty howl.

I tried to scramble to my feet, the instinctive reaction to falling, but I couldn't get up.

Everything below the arms remained a dead weight. Get up. I heaved my head and shoulders forward,

trying to prize myself off the ground,

but each time I crumpled,

again and again, and again.

Something in my body was disconnected.

Urgent messages were being fired from the brain,

but they weren't getting through.

Only pain. Unbearable, indescribable pain, a scorching flame

...