KEY POINTS:
Mountain biker Vanessa Quin is recovering in Nelson Hospital after breaking her neck during the national championships in Nelson.
The former world downhill champion fractured her C2 vertebra - the part of the spine that controls head and neck movements - after crashing in her seeding run on Saturday. She also cracked her sternum and suffered hand injuries.
The crash comes after an injury-plagued 2006 season, where she shattered her arm in a World Cup race in Spain and needed further surgery after the Rotorua world championships in August.
The latest crash has left the 30-year-old just relieved she's still able to walk.
"I've had some pretty amazing crashes where I've walked away scot-free and I was off to buy a Lotto ticket, but this one was over the handlebars which is never good," Quin said from her hospital bed.
"You've got a lot of velocity behind you and it was a very uncomfortable way to crash.
"But I'm bloody lucky - it's another narrow escape for me."
The C2 injury is commonly known as the "hangman's fracture". It is the same vertebra former Superman actor Christopher Reeve and top New Zealand jockey Ken Browne both crushed, leaving them paralysed.
It's also the second time in five years Quin has broken a bone in her neck, after crashing on a velodrome in 2002. Her boyfriend, former motocross champion Nikki Urwin, was paralysed after crashing during a competition in Melbourne four years ago.
Urwin and Quin have also become close friends with paralysed Australian mountain biker Renee Junga, who crashed at the Rotorua worlds, and in another eerie coincidence, Quin's mother, Chris, was halfway through Reeve's book Still Me when she heard about Saturday's crash.
Quin said the doctors were happy with the stability of the injury.
Her crash came halfway through her seeding run on a deteriorating track through a Nelson pine forest.
With the aid of a marshall, she managed to walk nearly a kilometre down the track to the first-aid tent, where a medic immediately immobilised her neck.
She was then stretchered off the course to a nearby forestry road.
Quinn will have to wear a metal brace for up to 10 weeks but hopes to be well enough to fly back to Tauranga this week - and is determined to get back on a bike again soon.
Vanessa Quin
Age: 30
* National downhill champion 2000-2006
* World downhill champion 2004
* BOP sportsperson of the year 2004
* Halberg awards finalist 2004
* National BMX championship runner-up 2003-04
* Oceania downhill champion 2006
Crashes
2002: Manukau velodrome celebrity race, broken thumb, shoulder, cracked vertebra
2005: World BMX championships in Paris, injured wrist
2006: Vigo World Cup in Spain, broken arm, needed two bouts of surgery
This year: National championships in Nelson, fractured vertebra, cracked sternum, broken finger and thumb.
- BAY OF PLENTY TIMES
