Accident helps woman walk again after spending 14 years in a wheelchair.

After 14 years in a wheelchair, Monique van der Vorst stunned doctors by walking out of hospital - after an accident jolted her back to her feet.

Lying in her hospital bed after a frightening bicycle accident, Monique van der Vorst suddenly felt sharp spasms in her legs. The pain was agonising – like electric shocks – and exhausted her shattered body.

But instead of being concerned, Miss van der Vorst was overjoyed. For, 14 years after she was paralysed in an accident, the silver medal-winning Paralympic cyclist was suddenly and against all medical expectations regaining feeling in her legs.

"I still cannot believe I'm actually walking, having sat in a wheelchair since I was thirteen years old," she told The Sunday Telegraph.

"I called my mum and dad and my brother and said: 'You have to come to the hospital, I have something to show you'. They came and just couldn't believe it when I greeted them actually standing up."

Last week the 27-year-old Dutchwoman further confounded all expectations by signing with professional road cycling team Rabobank. She has her sights set on further Olympic glory – although this time, as an able-bodied cyclist.

"I'm an athlete in my body and soul and I'll just try my best," she explained. "And then we will see."

Miss van der Vorst was a sporty, athletic child who excelled at tennis and hockey. At the age of 13 she had just taken up cycling when a routine ankle operation damaged a nerve and left her paralysed from the hip down. A further accident in 2008, when she was hit by a car while hand cycling through Amsterdam, damaged her spinal cord and left her paralysed from the waist down.

But Miss van der Vorst did not let her disability prevent her sporting ambitions. She took up hand cycling competitively, rising to compete in the Beijing Paralympics and winning two silver medals.

But last year, while training for the London Paralympics, she suffered another accident.

"I was training on my hand cycle, and the cyclist hit me from behind pretty hard," she explained.

"I was lying in hospital again, feeling very low. All my body hurt, and I was afraid I might not even be able to get back in my wheelchair. The pain all over my body was very bad.

"I knew I had to keep moving my arms, as this was the way I could get back in my wheelchair.

"But suddenly I felt a tingling in my left foot."

Startled, Miss van der Vorst called a nurse, but was told that she would have to wait to see the doctor in the morning. All night long she continued to move her arms, despite excruciating pain, because moving her arms somehow meant there was feeling in her foot.

And the following morning, doctors could find no explanation for her condition. All they knew for sure was that sensation was returning to the legs of their wheelchair-bound patient.

Miss van der Vorst's mother Elijse and father Ed arrived with her brother Joost, 29, an accountant, to find her standing. The family can hardly believe that she may have the chance to compete in the 2016 Olympics.

But although she walked out of hospital, it was not an easy stroll back to normal life.

"I had actually been quite happy with my situation," she explained. "Now I would have to leave the paraplegic Olympic team."

She told the BBC: "That was a hard time in my life. It took some time to accept that, and find a new identity. Also I had no idea I would ever be an athlete again."

Although she could walk, it was not more than three steps. And she still is unable to run.

"But I am determined to compete in the Olympics," she said.

"I do not expect to be strong enough to take part in the 2012 Olympics in London, but my goal is to cycle for the Netherlands in 2016.

"I feel myself now to be a new person. I have even decided to sell my wheelchair and all the other aids I needed during my former life on eBay," she said with a laugh.

Doctors do not know how to explain her dramatic turnaround in health. Some believe the trauma of her last accident may have jolted her body her body back into activity, but Miss van der Vorst has no explanation. She only feels gratitude that she is no longer in a wheelchair.

"It's horrible how people talk over you when you're sitting in a wheelchair. For your own part it's difficult to deal with people equally as you always have this massive piece of equipment around you.

"I still so enjoy actually walking next to somebody and being able to look them in the eye when I speak to them.

"Do I believe this is a miracle? I don't know. I do believe there is something.

"But I don't believe you can sit back and wait for miracles. You have to believe in yourself."