Doctor Fell 300 Feet from a Mountain While Hiking, but Survived. Here’s What She Remembers (Exclusive)

• During a 2024 hike in Switzerland, Dr. Shirlee Xie fell 300 feet down a mountain

• "I was walking in front of my husband. And the trail sort of gave way, and then I started tumbling," she tells PEOPLE

• Her injuries left her paralyzed from the chest down — and while physical therapy has been strenuous, Xie is determined to get back to practicing medicine

Five months ago, Shirlee Xie, a doctor from Edina, Minn., and her husband, John Kriz, visited Switzerland for a hiking excursion in the mountains. It was the fourth time that the mother of two had visited the European country.

“We do one trip a year that's adults-only, and it's usually a big hiking trip,” Xie, 40, tells PEOPLE. “The kids are good hikers, but they can't do it day after day."

On Sept. 10, 2024 — the second day of their Switzerland trip — Xie fell about 300 feet from a mountain. Miraculously, she survived, but she sustained multiple injuries, including fractures to her spine that has left her completely paralyzed from the chest down.

Although Xie continues to make progress, she still has no definitive memory of exactly what happened that day.

Related: College Football Player Paralyzed in Practice Injury 'Is Beyond Ecstatic' as Family Brings Him Home for Rehab

Xie says the accident took place between Verbier and Cabane de Louvie.

“It was up at the mountain, but it was a flatter part of the trail. I was walking in front of my husband. And the trail sort of gave way, and then I started tumbling," she continues. "There wasn't anything that stopped me."

What she did learn later was that her husband John, 44, came down after her following the fall and then dialed for help. A helicopter arrived at the scene and transported Xie to a nearby hospital. There, she underwent 20 hours of surgery. Several days later, she regained consciousness and was surrounded by her husband, her parents and some friends.

It was after she woke up that doctors revealed that she suffered a traumatic brain injury, broken ribs, a collapsed lung and multiple fractures on her vertebrae.

Although fully processing that she was paralyzed took a "really long time," when doctors first told her the news, she recalls being "very matter of fact about it."

"I knew that there wasn't anything that could be done to reverse it," she explained. "I think it was just like, 'This is what it is.' "

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The couple's two children — Maddie, 9, and Oliver, 11 — weren’t told by their father about their mother’s accident until the day before she left Switzerland so as to not worry them.

Related: Michigan Nurse Paralyzed After Sustaining Spinal Fracture from Horseback Riding Accident

Xie was re-intubated before flying back to Minnesota where she was taken to the ICU at Abbott Northwestern Hospital. After she stayed there for over a week, she was transferred to Abbott’s Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute. Xie describes the rehab that came after as intense.

“It was at least three hours a day of physical, occupational and speech therapy,” she recalls. “A lot of it was just learning how to put clothes on again, learning how to take a shower, learning how to brush my teeth. Physical therapy focused a lot on helping me regain use of my hands because I lost a lot of function in my hands and learning how to push myself in a wheelchair.”

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As a doctor, Xie spent her career helping others, especially at Hennepin Healthcare where she works. Since the accident, she had been back to her workplace but this time for follow-up appointments as a patient. “That's a little strange,” she acknowledges.

Born in China, Xie moved to Minnesota with her family. She had always wanted to pursue a career in medicine. “I can't remember a time where I didn't want to be a doctor, so it was always part of the life plan,” she says, adding, “Initially, I thought I was going to be an ER doctor. Then I realized after doing ER rotations as a med student, that was not what I wanted to do. So internal medicine is more my speed."

Xie served on the frontlines with other healthcare workers at the height of the 2020 COVID pandemic and discussed the crisis during an appearance on CNN at the time.

“I would cry on the way to work,” Xie tells PEOPLE. “I would cry on the way home. When you got to the hospital, there was a point where 100% of my patients had COVID, and every single day somebody either went to the ICU or died. It was so challenging. What made it harder was I've always been responsible for other people's lives, but this was really every day with life and death at work. "

What has gotten Xie through the ordeal is the support she received from her family and co-workers from Hennepin Hospital. A friend of Xie established a GoFundMe to help pay for her medical and recovery expenses; as of Wednesday, Feb. 12, the benefit has generated about $100,000.

“I'm really humbled by how much support people have given," she says of the online fundraiser. "There's no possible way for me to pay them back. We're so grateful for everybody that's contributed to it.”

After her discharge from Courage Kenny last month, Xie is rehabilitating at her temporary apartment in Edina as work on her family’s regular home continues through the summer. She also hopes to someday return to work as a doctor.

“I'm taking some time off to rehab, let my body get stronger, let my brain get stronger,” she says. “And then the goal will be to return to some kind of medicine by summer, I think. I can't imagine my life not practicing medicine. I don't know what else I would do.”

Read the original article on People