A woman has told how she “miraculously” survived being hit by a boat’s propeller on a snorkelling trip that left her with horrific injuries.
Amor Armitage, 37, said that a two-inch blood clot prevented her from bleeding to death after the accident on the Caribbean island of Cozumel.
The yoga instructor was enjoying a dream holiday with her husband Chase but during a snorkelling and diving trip she was returning to the boat when she was hit by a propeller.
Amor had flown out to Cozumel to be with Chase, a stuntman who had been working on a US film set, and the plan was then to head to continue the holiday in Florida before returning to Basingstoke.
But she is now in a Cozumel hospital after suffering terrible injuries on December 17.
She wrote in a recent blog post : “It was a truly magical time in the ocean, we saw some gorgeous sting rays, reef sharks and a big sea turtle, besides colourful and unique schools of fish, fish of all types and sizes, just wonderful to see.”
It was when she returned to the boat after starting to feel cold that she was struck by the propeller.
"I swam to the boat’s ladder, there was music playing in the boat and the captain was not looking in my direction," she said.
"When I hold onto the ladder, I take out one fin, the captain of the boat doesn’t see me, I suddenly realise the boat has started moving and I’m unable to say anything, words just didn't come out as fear freezed me.
"Everything seems to slow down as I feel the boats' propeller hitting my abdomen, genitals and legs, my body feels heavy and I see the boat moving away from me, out of my gut comes a visceral scream, asking for help, the captain sees me but I know I have to swim towards the boat, so with cuts all over my body I managed to swim to the ladder once again.
"He tells me I have to go up the ladder, I looked down and see my insides out, I feel there’s no chance I can pull myself up alone."
She added: "My body feels mutilated and I feel a pain that is out of this world… Once I manage to pull myself up, the captain helps place my body on the floor and I start trembling, he calls the scuba team and Chase arrives."
Amor was taken by boat to the shore and rushed to hospital where she had a four-hour operation to reconstruct and attach bones and tendons.
She then had to undergo the knife a second time to remove a blood clot and bypass a severed artery by using another vein from her leg.
"It seems that during the accident, I got a blood clot in my femoral artery which prevented me from losing too much blood both during transport to the hospital, and during surgery. Without it, I would have lost a lot of blood," said Amor.
While she is now recovering in hospital and admitted that it feels like "being alive is a miracle", the couple face hospital bills of £60,000.
"The road to recovery will be slow and classes will continue without me for a few months, it seems that we can fly back to the UK early January, our hospital bills are huge, we did not have insurance and the costs seem to increase by day," said Amor.
A JustGiving page has been set up here.
