A WOMAN who battled back from horrific injuries after a horse fall to return to college in Worcester is set to graduate next month.

Sarah Kemp, of Kidderminster, beat the odds to survive a horse-riding accident that left her in a coma for two months, including learning to write again.

She was only 20 when she fell from the horse after it tripped up a sandstone step along Kinver Edge during a ride in July, 1999.

Despite being left with horrendous injuries, including a shattered face, a blood clot on her brain and a fractured skull, Miss Kemp has gone on to make a full recovery.

“The horse fell on my head,” she said. “I’ve got pins holding my face together. I broke my optic nerve in my left eye so I’m partially-sighted and deaf in my left ear.

“I can remember a bit of the day before the accident but nothing until the day after I woke up from the coma.”

Now, 14 years on, she is set to graduate after completing the HNC in chemistry from Worcester College of Technology.

“I’m quite pleased with myself,” said the 34-year-old, who has no memory of the fall.

“It took a while to get myself back together, which is why it took me a while to go back to college, but it’s a gradual process.”

Miss Kemp, a sales assistant at The Range, in Crossley Retail Park, Kidderminster, had to learn how to swallow, walk, talk and write again after she woke from the coma at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital 14 years ago.

“It was frustrating,” she said. “The worst thing for me was learning to write again because I knew how the words were supposed to appear but the words wouldn’t comply with my head.

“It took me a year to get over this and be on an even keel.”

Miss Kemp, who was working at an equestrian centre and as an auxiliary nurse at Kidderminster Hospital before the accident, said her graduation in Worcester was the pinnacle of her road to recovery.

“My dad kept all the newspapers to show me what happened,” she said. “It was like reading about somebody else, when it was me.

“It means a lot to be where I am now. I hope it gives other people inspiration to not give up. That’s really all it was about. I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.”