Sally Nowell crawled out of a Somerset quarry with severe injuries

Determined Sally Nowell, 36, tripped on her pet dog she was walking and tumbled 50ft into the large pit.

She suffered horrific injuries and with a shattered pelvis couldn't stand so began dragging herself along on her elbows.

Sally spent 14 hours crawling to safety as she heard rescue helicopters overheard trying to find her.

She eventually managed to clamber back out of the quarry in the dark where she was found by a rescue dog.

Stable jockey Sally, of Midsomer Norton, Somerset, is still in hospital receiving treatment following the ordeal on August 13.

She said: "There are quite a few quarries near where I live. I was walking the dogs. I like to go running and take the dogs with me.

"I've been up there with my husband lots of times. But this time I decided to take a path I hadn't ever been down before."

The path led Sally to the very edge of a 60ft cliff that towered over the quarry.

"I wanted to see so I wandered off the path and peered over the edge - it was a big drop with a lot of rocks and undergrowth," Sally recalled.

"I got a bit scared and I turned back around to make sure the dog hadn't got too close the edge. But I was a bit disoriented, I took a step back and tripped over a dog."

Sally plunged down the sheer cliff face, hurtling towards the rocks at the bottom.

"I remember falling through the air," she said. ''Everything slows down. I remember thinking to myself 'this is going to hurt'.''

Sally was knocked unconscious by the fall and landed in a heap at the bottom of the cliff with terrible injuries.

"I remember it was getting dark when I woke up," she said.

"It was about 8pm when I fell - this was back in August - so it must have been 9pm or 9.30pm when I came to.

"I didn't know where I was - I was severely concussed. It took me a while to figure out but it started coming back to me."

As Sally's memory returned the true terror of her situation began to take hold.

"The pain wasn't too bad at first,"she recalled. ''It must have been the adrenaline. I knew my arm was broken because it was at a funny angle.

"I tried to walk but the pain in my pelvis wouldn't let me use my legs."

As night began to fall Sally knew it would still be hours until anybody even noticed she was missing.

Her husband Sean, 38, wasn't due home from his job as a self-employed mechanical engineer until much later.

Meanwhile she lay helpless and alone at the bottom of the quarry with her dogs looking down from the top of the cliff.

"I knew my husband wouldn't be home for a while yet - he gets back from work at 10.30pm and he wouldn't know when I'd left with the dogs - so nobody would come looking until midnight," she said.

"I realised I had to save myself."

So Sally began an arduous journey and tried to walk but her shattered pelvis meant she couldn't stand so she began dragging herself across the quarry floor towards a way out.

"I was crawling along on my elbows," she explained. "It was further than I thought, I kept having to rest. I couldn't very get far with the pain and the concussion. I managed to get about half way but I had to stop."

Sally continued to drift in and out of consciousness for the next few hours. She would try to crawl before stopping to rest.

"It must have been 2am or 3am when I heard a helicopter flying overhead. I thought 'oh that couldn't be for me'. But when it came back and started circling I realised it was for me," she remembered.

The police helicopter had been dispatched to find Sally, using its searchlight to look for her among the rocks and trees in the quarry.

"At one point it flew straight over with its searchlight but it didn't see me," she said.

"That's when I started to panic. When they flew away again, I think I started to give up hope."

Sally spent the rest of the night drifting in and out of consciousness.

She had all but given up hope of being found but her dogs never left the top of the cliff.

"They are very good dogs," she said. "As the morning came the I started to panic, I thought maybe nobody would find me. But then one of the dogs barked - I thought they might have heard someone so I called out - and one of the search and rescuers called back 'We've got you. We're coming."

Sally was overcome with relief and exhaustion when her rescuers arrived.

"They asked me what was hurting. I couldn't move, I couldn't breathe," she said.

Sally was given painkillers and airlifted to Southmead Hospital in Bristol where she was found to have three broken vertebrae, a broken wrist, three or four broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a shattered pelvis and a lacerated spleen.

Her heart stopped on the operating table while surgeons were trying to save her.

Sally in hospital after her ordeal

"They had to resuscitate me and they had to put a chest drain in. They said I was very lucky I didn't bleed to death from the injury to my spleen," said Sally.

She remembers coming back to life.

"I remember coming to with a mask on my face and lots of noise and people around me," Sally recalled.

Despite the horrific injuries she sustained in the ordeal, Sally is a fighter and healed up quickly. She was out of intensive care in a week and returning home in another week.

Sally pus her swift improvement down to a good mental attitude.

"I've got a mind over matter philosophy,"she explained.

After arriving home Sally began a much longer road to recovery. She has made painful progress but passed a milestone recently on September 18 when she finally came out of plaster.

While the physical injuries healed, the long periods of inaction had another side-effect on Sally's health.

She has suffered from anorexia her whole life and she said the prolonged periods of immobility were torture.

Fearing she would put on weight while unable to walk, Sally stopped eating.

"After two weeks at home I'd lost loads of weight. My care worker asked if I wanted to go to hospital," she explained.

"I've had anorexia my whole life. It's been up and down but I've always managed to keep myself out of hospital."

Sally said things had been going well before her fall, she had been managing to get her weight up and had made healthy changes to her lifestyle - but the fall was a set-back.

She is still in hospital getting treatment for her anorexia and is in constant pain from her pelvis and back.

"My wrist has been giving me gyp, but on the bright side I've been walking without crutches for two weeks," Sally said.

And now she is back in the saddle.

In a true sign of improvement, Sally has been able to return to her passion: riding horses.

"I managed to sit on one of my horses yesterday," said a delighted Sally. "It's huge, it's a milestone."

As Sally's recovery continues she thanked those who had rescued her form the worst night of her life.

"I really wanted to say thank you to the search and rescue team and the air ambulance and everyone at the hospital.

"If it wasn't for search and rescue I wouldn't have survived," she said.

A spokesperson from the Avon and Somerset Search and Rescue said: "This was a very satisfying result for all involved. Whoever said a dog is man's best friend were wrong, dogs are a friend to all Human Kind.

"They diligently stayed with Sally throughout the night. Without their loyalty and the capabilities and competence amongst our team, the outcome may not have been as good."

"We are all so pleased that Sally is making a good recovery and pass on our very best wishes. This is what we train to do and it is reward enough for each and every member to know that we contributed to the continued well being of Sally.

"We hope she will continue to enjoy walking her dogs in future."