Woman confined to a wheelchair since car crash left her partially paralysed hurls herself into swimming pool to save drowning

A woman who was left partially paralysed after a car crash seven years ago leapt from her wheelchair and jumped into a swimming pool to the save the life of a drowning pensioner.

Corinne Colombier, who suffered serious injuries in an accident in 2005, hurled herself into a pool at a clinic in Leuk-les-Bains, Switzerland, after hearing screams for help.

The computer scientist was in the clinic's cafeteria when she somehow managed to lift herself from her chair and sprint 150ft, to an outdoor pool where she found the 70-year-old Italian man struggling in the water.



Corinne Colombier who was left partially paralysed after a car crash seven years ago leapt from her wheelchair and jumped into a swimming pool to the save the life of a drowning pensioner

The 48-year-old, who cut herself on a bush in her desperate bid to help the man, said she found 'movement I thought I no longer possessed.'



She said: 'I don’t know how, or why, but I lifted myself out of the chair.

'It was instinctive — I was able to give him first aid so I did. It was as if he was already dead when I arrived.'

She managed to keep the drowning man's head above water until the pool attendant - who had gone to the toilet - returned to lift the man out with the help of a waitress from the restaurant.

Ms Colombier added: 'I remembered tips from a first aid course I had taken 30 years ago. The waitress massaged the man's heart while I gave him mouth-to-mouth. He regained consciousness after about a minute.'

The patient was airlifted to the Visp hospital before being transported to one in Sion where he is in a 'stable and satisfactory' condition.

The incident happened in picturesque town of Leuk-les-Bains in Switzerland

'A nurse told me if he is still living it is thanks Corinne,' said Raymonde Bonvin, director of care at the clinic.

The man was not supposed to go into the water unsupervised but did so when the attendant went to the loo.

Ms Colombier, who has left her wheelchair only three times since the car crash - and only then with the aid of people supporting her - said she is happy that the victim 'has the chance of a second life' after her miraculous sprint.



The injuries she suffered in the car crash were to her legs and spine.

