In April 1990, Julie Hill broke her back in a car crash, paralysing her from the waist down. With immense personal courage, humour and an extraordinarily positive attitude she faced the terrible consequences of the accident and the new way of life it imposed on her. She volunteered to become the world’s first paraplegic to have a revolutionary electronic device implanted into her spine and attached to the nerves that control her leg muscles.

Julie’s story is the unique culmination of thirty years of pioneering British research started by an eccentric Cambridge professor, Giles Brindley. Held together with little more than sticky tape and hope, the implant’s predecessors were Heath Robinson creations born out of DIY technology. Now, after acting as a guinea pig for five years and with the devotion and expertise of the bio-medical engineers, surgeons, nursing staff and electronic experts who have made it all possible, Julie can- at the press of a button – stand, step and even go cycling with her children. Furthermore, the research into Julie’s nervous system has uncovered remarkable scientific discoveries that require the medical textbooks to be rewritten.

Having overcome pain, frustration and emotional anguish to make medical history, Julie Hill recounts the tale of how she stood on her own two feet once more, and fulfilled her simple dream of once again creating footprints in the snow. Turned into a drama premiere for ITV, starring Caroline Quentin and Kevin Whateley, Footprints in the Snow has become an enduring bestseller.