Toddler's holiday hell

Little Chelsea Marsh spent five weeks in traction and then needed intensive physiotherapy and a Zimmer frame to get back on her feet, after slipping by the pool when she was away with her mum and dad, Gillian Berry and Simon Marsh.

The family, from Squadron Drive, were shunted from one Spanish hospital to the next on the holiday island of Gran Canaria before arriving back a week late at Heathrow, where an ambulance was waiting to take them straight to Worthing Hospital.

Gillian told the Herald: "Chelsea just screamed solidly for two days.

"When she came out of hospital she couldn't walk at all. For a week she just shuffled about on her bottom.

''She had to learn how to walk all over again."

The couple described their break away as the "holiday from hell".

They ended up travelling hundreds of miles across the island and visiting three different hospitals for treatment.

"We were in such a state ourselves because no one was speaking English and we just didn't know what was going on," said Gillian, 21.

"Chelsea was just screaming and screaming."

The little girl, who was two at the time of the accident in May, eventually had both her legs put in plaster until the holiday company could get her home for treatment.

A week later, the family were put on an indirect flight, which stopped at Madrid, before touching down at Heathrow.

Gillian said: "Every time the plane took off and started its descent, Chelsea would just start screaming because of the pressure on her cast.

"The minute we got back to England, the doctors said they couldn't believe the type of cast Chelsea had been put in because it was so old school.

"When they took it off she was red raw because of the way it had been slipping and rubbing against her skin."

Chelsea spent nearly five weeks in traction in Worthing Hospital. She missed starting her new play school and now has to wait until September for the new term to start.

"Looking at her now you'd never know anything was wrong, " said Gillian.

"Before the accident, it was the best holiday we had ever had, but it just turned into the holiday from hell."