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Age: 27
From: Cheshire
Occupation: part-time bar manager
Celebrity Dance Partner: Martin Offiah

Just two years ago fun-loving Carolyne Underwood was working as a bar manager and spending most weekends out clubbing with her girlfriends. But in January 2007 her world changed forever when she woke up paralysed after a night out. Tests revealed she had suffered a spinal cord lesion after a blood vessel burst in her back leaving her T3 paralysed, which means from chest-level down.

Carolyne has been a wheelchair-user for less time than the other contestants, but is the most disabled. She has spent the last two years working to raise £30,000 to have stem cell treatment that could help her walk again. With a positive outlook, Carolyne says paralysis has changed her life and ultimately, she believes, helped her find herself.

Carolyne says that her favourite pastimes used to be spending weekends going out with her mates, going on holidays, and buying nice things. Now she knows who her true friends are and values time with her family.

Carolyne says: "Just because I'm in a wheelchair doesn't mean I'm sat at home not being able to do anything. I don't feel like I'm disabled, I look after myself and don't need anyone to look after me.

"My wheelchairs skills are so much better from the training and I'll channel the confidence I've got from the programme into something new. I just really don't want to get kicked out in the first round!"

Carolyne is dancing with professional rugby league player Martin Offiah. In 1997 Martin was awarded an MBE for his services to sports and in 2004 he took part in the first series of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ One's Strictly Come Dancing, reaching fourth place with his partner Erin Boag.