Rachel Pighills, of Pershore, on way home from Barcelona after 'life-changing' neck op

An anonymous donor provided £130,000 to allow the operation in Barcelona to go ahead

A woman is responding well to a pioneering operation in Spain, her husband has said.

Rachel Pighills, 35, suffered a complex injury which led to her skull slipping down on to her spine when she was hit by a ceiling fan in 2018.

Money was raised for specialist surgery in Barcelona last month, including £130,000 from an anonymous benefactor.

Her husband Guy said she was "progressing daily" and her breathing was much improved.

She is now on her way home to Pershore in Worcestershire.

"Her breathing was her biggest problem," Mr Pighills said.

"And it was deteriorating so rapidly. It sounded like she was gasping for her last breath, literally every few minutes which was awful.

"And the improvement there is just immediate to see."

The mother-of-one's skull was "compressing her brain stem on the very top of her spine", he said.

In Barcelona, a doctor removed a fusion from a previous operation and "reset Rachel's head into the best possible position he could manage", Mr Pighills said.

Rachel and Guy raised money from her operation in Spain

However, she has a long road of recovery ahead.

"It's like I say, baby steps but these baby steps they just feel like giant leaps for me really," he said.

"I'm so excited for the what the future might hold. But we've got to be realistic and know that any slight slip, trip or fall could just send Rachel so far back, and we could end up having to come back for things to be fixed. So we've got to be so, so careful for the next 12 months minimum."

She now has "metal fusion" from her skull down to her T5 vertebrae, following the "completely life-changing operation," he said.

He said their journey home by road would be slow and steady to keep his wife safe.