Rachael Gingery is back at Burning Man, even after a devastating fall in 2024 had her leaving the playa by ambulance.

The San Francisco resident fell 20 feet off a ship art piece, "Naga & the Captainess.”

“I remember laying on the ground, feeling shocks of pain course through my body and being unable to move as I was loaded into an ambulance," she told the RGJ last year.

She fractured four vertebrae and a rib, and had contusions on her lung and spleen. She said doctors in Reno told her if she had landed even slightly differently, it could have killed her or left her paralyzed.

"My fall was just an accident, and accidents happen," Gingery said this week from the playa, where she's returned for her ninth Burning Man. "No reason to let that keep me from coming back."

Her recovery took a

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