A woman spent two months in a coma and woke up blind after contracting food poisoning after eating at a fast-food restaurant. Team GB cyclist Lizzie Jordan contracted E.Coli as a 19-year-old student in 2017.
She said: "I had a very strange immune reaction to the food poisoning - my sister also had the same poisoning but she didn't have the same, very strange immune reaction to it. I ended up suffering multiple organ failure and I was on full-life support."
Lizzie, now 25, was in a coma for eight weeks, reports SurreyLive. She made a "miraculous comeback" following the trial use of an ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) machine funded by Barts Charity.
After she regained consciousness, there was some hope Lizzie would be able to see again once blood clots behind her eyes had cleared up, but it soon became apparent that her sight would not be returning. She said: "The damage was "irreversible" - that was how it was termed. I felt naturally very upset - it's one of the worst things that can happen. It's not something you think is ever going to happen to you. It was all a bit overwhelming.
"It was scary not being able to see. To be honest with you though I was on so much medication at the time that it wasn't that bad. But then it hit me harder when I tried to return to normal life."
Lizzie now lives with her parents and became a Team GB cyclist after being spotted during a Para-Cycling Talent ID in Manchester two years ago. In October, Lizzie won a silver medal at the UCI Para-Cycling Track World Championship in Paris.
She said: "I've always said that I wanted to achieve more without my sight than I did with it, which I'm very much fulfilling at the moment. I'm not paid or an elite athlete yet but I'm part of the GB Para foundation team. Often people wrongly think when you're on the team that you can do the Olympics but that's not guaranteed at all.
She added: "You've got to work your way up that, which is a whole other level.
"I'm getting a real sense of fulfilment for something that I never thought I'd be doing. I was so poorly that my heart and lungs had failed and so to be doing such a high level of sport now is quite a testament to how much hard work I had put into training - and how the doctors worked miracles on me."
