Boxer Chris Eubank's ex-wife has been left looking like a "stormtrooper from Star Wars" after breaking her back in a freak treehouse fall.

Karron Stephen-Martin has to strap on a full body brace to support her spine every time she walks a short distance.

She revealed her embarrassment at the outfit as she spoke for the first time this week about the accident which nearly paralysed her and has transformed her lifestyle.

The sports-loving mother-of-four said: "The brace completely covers my top half, front and back. I look like a stormtrooper from Star Wars."

The Argus broke the news in November that Ms Stephen-Martin had suffered a severe injury after falling backwards from the new luxury treehouse she had installed in the garden of her home in Rottingdean.

She said this week that the wood in the door had warped and as she tried to slam it shut the handle came off in her hand, sending her flying off the platform.

She landed on her back during the fall and was unable to move.

Ms Stephen-Martin, 43, said she was lying in mud and nettles sobbing for more than half an hour before a neighbour heard her desperate cries for help.

Her sons Joe, 12, and Sebastian, 17, were in the house but could not hear her.

She said she was taken to the Royal Sussex County Hospital, in Brighton, where she was told she had compressed one of the vertebrae in her lower spine and a piece of bone had chipped off. She had also fractured two pedicule bones.

Ms Stephen-Martin said: "I was told I would probably need an operation to insert two pins into the bone to stabilise it.

"I was devastated, despite being told that I was incredibly lucky not to have damaged the spinal cord or nerves around the bone."

She was kept in hospital for six days for observation, during which time her she found her inactivity hard to bear, before a new scan revealed the operation was not necessary.

Delighted Ms Stephen-Martin was sent home but had to stay in a wheelchair for a week and the brace for five weeks.

She has started a six month physiotherapy to rebuild the muscles weakened by the injury and inactivity.

The fitness-fanatic mother, who loves cycling, running and going to the gym, said she was now desperate to start getting active again.

She said: "I'm still nervous when I'm out walking. I may look healthy and fit, but I feel half the person I was."

BOX: Karron Stephen-Martin Karron Stephen-Martin had only recently moved into her new Rottingdean home after selling the £3.25 million Hove seafront mansion where her family had lived since she split with Chris Eubank in 2005.

The couple had been married for 15 years and appeared together in a reality television show At Home With The Eubanks, along with Joe, Sebastian and their oldest son Chris Jnr, 19, and daughter Emily, 14.

Chris Jnr made headlines last year after starting an amateur boxing career. He has set his sights on qualifying for the London 2012 Olympics.