BRAVE Lisa Edmondson can't wait to get her 'new foot' so she can be back running, dancing and swimming with her pals.

Nearly six weeks ago she had to have most of her left foot amputated after an accident with a bus in Bacup town centre left it crushed.

Surgeons at Manchester's Withington Hospital managed to save her ankle and lower leg by pinning the bones back together and they also managed to save the nerve endings so when she gets her prosthetic foot she should be able to return to all the activities she used to enjoy before the accident.

But live-wire Lisa, who will celebrate her 10th birthday tomorrow, isn't letting the injury stop her getting about as she pulls herself across the floor on her bottom to answer the telephone.

She was in town with a friend when the accident happened in July. Her mum Beverley said: "Her friend came running to our house to say that Lisa has been hit by a bus and when I got there the police were holding her leg up. I was just in a state of shock."

Lisa said: " I was standing up when the bus went over my foot and afterwards I tried to put my leg down but it wouldn't touch the floor." Lisa was taken by air ambulance to Withington and her mum and father Keith followed in a police car. At first doctors thought they could save her foot but then they had to give her parents the news that part would have to be amputated.

After just over three weeks she was allowed back home and the family have now moved to Grasmere Terrace, Bacup, where Lisa has used some of the money raised for her in pubs and businesses to pay for her bedroom to be redecorated.

She said: "I was worried that I was not going to be able to do things again, but when my ankle heals they will be fitting a new foot and I will be able to run, dance and walk."

Lisa is currently being educated at Easden Clough in Burnley but hopes to be back soon with her school friends at Thorn Primary School in Bacup.

She received home-made cards from her school friends at Thorn and is having homework sent out so she can keep up with the school work she is missing.

"I am looking forward to being able to go back to school," she said. "I'm bored with just sliding around at home all the time."

Beverley praised everyone at Withington Hospital and also people locally who had raised money for Lisa.

She added: "I am just grateful that everything should be getting back to normal."

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