Former rugby star 'wired' to play para ice hockey

Dani Czernuszka-Watts says she felt free playing para ice hockey

Dani Czernuszka-Watts remembers the exact moment her back broke.

"My teeth slammed together, my head hit the floor, and I just felt this almighty snap in my ears," she says.

"It was from then on the electric bolt went through my body... I've been in pain ever since."

The Reading Sirens rugby player had been tackled by Bracknell captain Natasha King, who was heard vowing to "break her" just minutes earlier during a match in 2017.

The judge in Czernuszka-Watts' compensation case ruled the tackle "reckless and dangerous"

As a result of the tackle, former flanker Czernuszka-Watts is paraplegic, uses a wheelchair and suffers from chronic nerve pain.

But the athlete, who won her compensation case at the High Court last year, said losing the use of her legs was not the worst bit.

"The paralysis disables me, but the chronic pain completely annihilates me," she says.

She says the pain is so severe, on some days it is impossible to ignore.

Czernuszka-Watts was active and loved exploring the outdoors before her injury

"It's like having a hundred songs on at once, and then a static TV, and then someone's trying to ask you a question, and you're trying to function in a day-to-day life," she says.

Sport has always "been a passion of mine", says Czernuszka-Watts, who was 28 when she suffered her injuries.

But she admits it had initially been a struggle to return.

"If I was going to put my body on the line again, it has to be something that you're passionate about," she says.

Czernuszka-Watts spent months in hospital after after sustaining the injuries in 2017

She tried a lot of wheelchair sports but none of them hit - until she saw para ice hockey.

"I literally was like - 'it's that'," she says.

Now, more than six years on from that tackle, she is part of Great Britain's para-ice hockey team.

A contact sport, players sit in a sled with two blades and use hockey sticks to propel themselves over the ice and handle the puck.

As soon as Czernuszka-Watts saw para-ice hockey she wanted to play

"It's rugby on ice," she jokes.

She says the sport has allowed her to meet "some of the most awesome humans".

"When we come away from our team we're all so isolated, and then you come within a team and you're all together and it doesn't feel like you're anything other than just part of a team."

The athlete says she worries about injuring herself "every time I play", and she sometimes suffers from flashbacks.

"I'm only human... but equally I'm a human that's wired to be physical and play sport, and you just can't change that," she says.

"Once I was on the ice, it was just freedom."