Medical student left paralysed by falling man in shopping centre opens up on This Morning
6 November 2019, 11:58 | Updated: 6 November 2019, 12:31
The 22-year-old King's student has been hailed as 'extraordinary' for how she's dealt with the life-changing injuries.
Trainee Doctor Grace Spence Green was on This Morning today and opened up about the horrific ordeal she endured last October after she broke a jumping man's fall at Westfield Shopping Centre in Stratford.
The 23-year-old student had just finished her medical placement and was saying goodbye to a friend after waiting for them to get something from a shop and was on her way to teach children at a climbing class when she suffered a fractured spine as a result of Amsumana Sillah Trawally intentionally falling from a height of around 120ft.
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She was left paralysed and in a wheelchair, and admitted to Holly and Phil on the ITV show today that at the time, she thought to herself: "I'm not sure I'm going to make it through the next eight hours".
Recalling the day that changed her life forever, Grace - who is still at medical school and wants to finish her qualification - explained: "I just remember saying bye to my friend, then looking clearly at the ceiling and it was all white and bright.
"And rememeber thinking it was strange i was waking up cause i didnt remember falling asleep.
"There was police around me there and people around them."
Amsumana Sillah Trawally, 25 and from east London, spent several hours choosing a spot at the shopping centre to jump from and suffered just a broken leg as Ms Green broke his fall.
Last year, after Trawally was taken to court, Terrence Donovan, Ms Green's lawyer, told the Standard she takes comfort in the fact she saved Trawally's life and is now focused on continuing with her medical career.
He said: "She finds it very difficult to talk about him.
"But she has an amazing view that even though she was injured she managed to save a life.
Writing in The Guarding herself last week, Grace explained: "I started screaming that I couldn’t feel my legs.
"Despite my panic, I was pretty lucid, and could tell there was someone else on the floor nearby, also surrounded.
"I heard them telling him that he had fallen from a great height.
"That was how I deduced that someone had landed on me."
When Phil and Holly asked about what happened afterwards, Grace explained: "I had an eight hour long surgery to fuse from T1 to T8.
"There's metal rods in my spine now".
Grace's Mum was nearby when the incident happened: "My mum works at Queen Mary’s so it wasn't too far for her. She remembers hearing lots of ambulances driving past at the time and thinking it was strange.
Then the police called her, and she instantly went to think I’d been stabbed, as there isn't really any other thing she could imagine I'd be injured from in a shopping centre".
