SLEDGING accident victim Lisa Tattersall today spoke from her hospital bed and said: "I didn't realise how serious my injuries were."

Lisa, 21, from Haslingden, thought she would be back on her feet after ten minutes despite fracturing a vertebrae at the top of her spine when she came off her sledge at Holden Vale, Helmshore, on Saturday afternoon.

Now she is confined to her bed in Fairfield General Hospital, Bury, for at least six weeks for the fracture to heal.

And she faces an anxious wait while doctors do tests to see if an hereditary bone condition triggered her injury.

Emergency services and Rossendale Search and Rescue Team spent more than an hour fighting through arctic conditions after Lisa and her brother Christopher, 10, fell off their sledge near Grane Reservoir.

Lisa's cousin Ashley Turner, 13, raised the alarm on the mobile phone she had got for Christmas while Christopher and cousin Edward Sharkey looked after Lisa.

Student Lisa thought she had suffered only minor injuries until doctors told her she would have to lie still on her back for weeks while she recovers.

Lisa, whose parents Gabrielle and Chris own Holden Mill Caravan Site, said: "I was lying in the snow and I was in a lot of pain, but I thought I had just bruised my back and that everything would be all right again in 10 minutes. "Even though I couldn't move and it was really painful I thought I would be OK. I thought everyone was making a big fuss over nothing."

Lisa was taken by ambulance to Bury General Hospital and was then later transferred to Fairfield where she is on the orthopaedic ward.

She said: "I thought I would be going home on Tuesday, but the doctors came to me that night and said it would be at least six weeks before I could go home.

"I had to have some blood tests done and I am going for a scan tomorrow because I have been told that people under the age of 70 don't normally fracture their backs.

"The doctors are looking into the possibility that I might have some sort of hereditary bone condition that has caused this to happen."

Once Lisa has undergone the tests she will have to wear a back brace to help the fracture heal.

But her plans for the future have been thrown into jeopardy by the accident.

Lisa is in her final year of a visual art degree at Bolton Institute and is due to complete coursework in the next few weeks.

And once she had finished her studies she was hoping to spend the summer working in the European party capital of Ibiza

She said: "It looks like I might not be able to go now. I will have to speak to my college tutors as well about my work. I hope the are understanding."