Anafaela from a town on the Atlantic coast in northern Brazil wanted to start training in Germany in the summer of 2010. After the first few days, she was happy to be in Stuttgart, and said: "I love this city." But after her first working day, she stumbled on the stairs of a shop and twisted her ankle.

Despite "pain like hell", Anafaela believed that the ankle was only sprained. She sat on the stairs, hoping that the pain increased, but when she got up, she could hardly stand on it. Soon, several people were around her. It was embarrassing for her. She got a bag of ice for cooling. Actually she wanted to buy a cell phone in the store. While she still sat on the stairs, some phone models were shown to her and she chose one. It was an unforgettable shopping experience, as she said.

A party in Stuttgart during the FIFA world championships 2010 before the accident.

As the foot swelled up and walking seemed impossible, they called an ambulance. Anafaela thought: "Ave Maria, I sprained my ankle and cause a slight chaos in the center of Stuttgart." There was a small crowd as the ambulance arrived. She wanted not to lie on the stretcher, but gritted her teeth and walked to the ambulance. In the car it seemed like a movie without subtitles to her, because she could understand almost nothing of that what was spoken in German to her. With her new mobile phone she called Frederik, a German friend, and told him that she was on the way to hospital.

There, the young Brazilian woman was X-rayed and had to wait in different rooms without saying what was going on. She asked a nurse, but she replies that the doctor will talk to her soon. Anafaela waited. Then she was taken into a room that looked like an operating theatre. She was asked to wait again. "I was worried about the situation," she recalled. After about half an hour the doctor came and said: "We have to insert four screws into the bone to stabilize the fracture." She was shocked: "I had just sprained my foot, right?" She has never broken a bone or has had surgery before. She did not want to believe that she will need surgery on her foot - and all that, four days after arriving in Germany. "I started crying, I was so scared. No one really spoke English, so I did not know exactly what was going on." She was glad when Frederik arrived and translated. The operation was unavoidable. With it, the doctors wanted to prevent that the fracture heals badly. But the foot was still swollen, so the OP had to take place on another day. Meanwhile foot and lower leg were splinted.

With a splinted leg after the accident.

Anafaela recalls. "I went home with my crutches, but could not even use them properly. We see people with crutches and think it would be easy to walk with, but it is not, especially if you have small, thin arms like mine, which are weak. It hurt extremely - both, legs and arms ... " Her roommate was very nice, he made dinner for her and helped her into the bathtub. "I went to bed and asked God to tell me what I should do." The next day a guardian angel came who was sent by her mother, as she said. It was Keka a friend of her mother, who lived for a long time in the near of Stuttgart. She let Anafaela stay in her house, went with her to the hospital, helped with translations, spoke to the doctors and calmed her. "She prayed with me when I woke up and was in pain."

The night before surgery Anafaela slept poorly. "I was very nervous." The next day Keka drove her to the hospital and spent the whole time with her until she was taken to the operating room. "I started crying, trembling with fear," recalls Anafaela. "I heard the nurse saying 'Buenos Diiiiias'. She put a needle in my vein and asked me if it hurts. Then I cannot remember anything." In the recovery room she regained consciousness; she felt no pain and asked a nurse. She confirmed that she has already survived the surgery. Then she fell asleep again. When she awoke, she lay in a hospital room and Keka sat on her bed. Anafaela felt pain on the operated foot. Later it was found that the cause was the cast that pressed on the little toe. A nurse gave her to a drug that dereased the pain. The surgeon visited her and said that the operation was successful. He had to use only two screws.

In hospital after surgery.

Anafaela spent five days in hospital. The temperature in her room was really high. It was the heat of summer and a room without air conditioning. Furthermore, she was surprised that some nurses poorly understood English. She remembers a scene when the pain in her foot came back and she tried to explain it with her hands. But instead of a painkiller, the nurse brought a bedpan. "Astonished, I stared at this humiliating thing. Later I was glad when I could finally get up and go to the toilet."

Even while she was in the hospital, her father arrived from Brazil in order to bring her back. It was better for her, because in the next two months she would have to walk on crutches and would depend on the support from strangers in a foreign country. Although it was difficult to get training in Germany, she do not regret the decision to cancel it. "I believe nothing happens by chance," she says. "I love being independent. But that was no longer possible after the injury."

After discharge from hospital.

As Anafaela was discharged from the hospital, her father and she spend three more days in Germany before they flew back. 23 days after the first operation, in Brazil she was operated for the second time to remove the screws.