Rylee Foster: Liverpool goalkeeper on 'miracle' recovery after car accident

Last October Rylee Foster was involved in a car crash which, in her words, nobody should have survived.

After suffering life-threatening injuries, including breaking her neck in seven places, her football career as a goalkeeper for Liverpool couldn't have been further from her mind.

But in just four months, with the aid of a halo device, she has been given hope of a full recovery and return to action.

The 23-year-old Canadian had been on holiday in Finland with some friends. It was the international break and she was on a high having just played a starring role in a penalty shootout victory for Liverpool in the Women's League Cup.

The group of five were driving to the capital, Helsinki, when the weather turned. Their car hydroplaned and spun out of control. «We flipped — it wasn't like a hot dog roll, it was like a dance in the air ordeal,» Foster told BBC Sport.

She was thrown through the windscreen after her seatbelt malfunctioned and one of her friends found her in a field «screaming hysterically and crying» in pain.

The car's roof had collapsed. «They actually think the fact I was ejected saved my life because if I was still in the car the roof would have come down on my head,» said Foster. «No-one should have survived that accident but all five of us did.»

Taken to a local hospital for a few hours, barely conscious of what was going on, she was then transported to the capital city and separated from her friends to receive emergency spinal treatment.

Foster woke up in a neck collar with seven fractures in her neck and vertebrae, while also injuring her cheekbone, knee and lung.

«It was all pretty crazy,» she recalled. «When I was in the ambulance I was calling for my friend, I had no idea what they were saying to me or