nurse Patricia Walker was flown home to her own hospital after falling in a hole in a pavement on the first day of a foreign holiday.

Mrs Walker ended up being taken to the hospital where she has worked for 30 years, with a fractured arm, hip and leg.

She had just dropped off her bags at her hotel in Ostend, Belgium, when she and three friends set off to explore the city.

Yards down the street, she slipped on a pavement which was under repair and had been patched up by wooden boards.

She was flown back to Britain yesterday after a week in a Belgian hospital and was last night a patient at the University Hospital of North Durham, in Durham City.

Mrs Walker, 49, from Meadowfield, Durham, took a coach on Good Friday to Ostend on her annual Easter break with Margaret Leadbitter, Joan Barry and Thelma Teggert.

She said: "I didn't get a chance to see anything of the city. The hospital and staff in Belgium were brilliant and really looked after me, but I am delighted to be back. The doctors said it will be six months before I am back in action."

Mrs Walker and her friends were due to return on Easter Monday, but she was detained at the St Jozef Hospital.

Husband Phil, 57, a van driver, son Andrew, 28, and daughter Judith, 22, travelled to Belgium. Younger son Gary, 18, stayed at home to look after the house.

Mr Walker said: "I think more than anything else, Patricia is embarrassed to be a patient in the hospital where she works."