Canadian Crystal Giesbrecht planned to spend six months in the Waikato attending bible college.
But she flew home yesterday, four months early, in a wheelchair.
The 23-year-old now has two stainless steel rods in her back after she "completely shattered" one of her vertebrae and fractured another after falling out of the top bunk she was sleeping in at the Capernwray Bible School on the outskirts of Cambridge.
Miss Giesbrecht was one of 53 students enrolled in the NZQA-accredited bible studies course.
The day before her fall, Miss Giesbrecht played in a game of rugby. Then about 1.30am on Saturday, September 5, she rolled out of her top bunk and fell about 1.5 metres on to the concrete floor below.
"I woke up in pain," she told the Waikato Times from her Waikato Hospital bed yesterday morning.
"Apparently I fell out of bed and slept for about 30 seconds after it happened as well."
Her roommate alerted other students who comforted her until St John Ambulance arrived.
"They said that I was only saying three things – `I can't feel my legs', `I'm cold' and `I'm in pain'. I wasn't crying or anything they say ... but I never cry."
Her mother Betty Giesbrecht was at her daughter's bedside in three days, while her father flew over two weeks later.
Mrs Giesbrecht said they had been overwhelmed with the support – and home baking – from the Waikato community.
Despite being paralysed from the waist down, Miss Giesbrecht had made slight progress during the past month and was starting to get some feeling back. She was determined to walk again, with the aid of crutches or leg braces, in 12 months.
"I can wiggle my legs. They say I might be able to walk again with braces on my ankles and legs or have crutches made."
Although the family had no ill-feeling towards the school, Mrs Giesbrecht now wanted other camps, schools or even people who had bunks in their homes to install safety barriers.
"I don't know if [the Labour Department] could change the bylaws, but you would hate for somebody else to have the same thing happen."
The bible school's director, Peter Thomas, said yesterday the school was already halfway through the design phase for its bunk bed modifications.
"It's obviously a high priority ... we've gone away from just a bar, because that apparently causes more injuries, people breaking arms."
He hoped to have the bunks modified in about a month.
The Labour Department had also investigated and found no issue, he said.
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