The last thing the 32-year-old can recall is high-fiving her coach after a particularly successful round of sparring against one of the world’s best pound-for-pound fighters Dina Thorslund.

“That third spar was probably my best of the week,” Chapman says. “I was getting the better of her and even her coach was having a bit of a go at her.”

It was the height of the summer and Chapman, England’s former world featherweight title challenger, had flown over to Denmark to help Thorslund prepare for her undisputed bantamweight title clash with Cherneka Johnson on August 8.

Things had been going well for Chapman throughout the trip but her coach Stuart Scott noticed things turned strange that day, Friday July 24. “I don’t really know what happened,” she says. “I don’t remember feeling any different.

“But then there were a few things during the spar that Stu said he noticed and so had Dina. Things didn’t seem right. My knee had buckled. He had also said something to me about sitting down and I had said ‘I think I need to lie down.’

“I was speaking in a way I wouldn’t normally speak. I remember a few rounds before, me and Stu were both super pumped because we were doing well in the spar. We were giving each other high-fives but I remember nothing after that.”

It was the third and final day of consecutive 10-round spars but with 20 seconds left in the ninth, and with Chapman’s legs not operating as they normally would, Scott decided to call time. It was a decision which almost certainly saved his fighter’s life.

It was clear instantly that Chapman required medical assistance and an air ambulance flew her directly to a hospital which specialized in neurology.

“Within 45 minutes of the spar ending I was being wheeled into the surgery,” she says. “If it was in England I’d still be waiting for an ambulance. Where I was in Denmark, there was a neurology hospital basically, it’s where they teach that kind of surgery. It meant they were real specialists doing the surgery on me. I definitely felt very lucky about where it happened.”

She underwent emergency surgery to address a bleed on the right side of the brain which involved the removal of a large part of her skull. Afterwards, she was placed in a medically induced coma which lasted nearly two weeks.

“Really when I think about it, I just feel sorry for my family,” Chapman says. “They were told to basically prepare for 24/7 care, that I’d be paralyzed down one side and brain damaged. They just don’t know how someone is going to be when they wake up.

“My partner Jack was told to maybe get a wet room installed, make changes to your house, she may need 24/7 care, she may be paralyzed, she may not remember anyone. But then he said he walked into my room and I was sitting up smiling and I just said 'Hi Ducky.' He thought he had walked into the wrong room.”

Her response to the procedure was nothing short of miraculous. The initial plan was for Chapman’s life-saving surgery to take place in Denmark before her skull was put back together once she returned to England. However, there was a problem.

“So what they normally do is send you back with your skull in your stomach for safe keeping,” she says. “They open up your stomach, put the skull in, sew it up, then take it out again once you’re home.

“But I was too lean so they couldn’t actually do that. There was no space for a skull in my stomach which meant I stayed in Denmark longer so they could put it back there and then fly me home. I’m so glad about that because of waiting times and stuff in Britain I could have had my skull off for months.”

Instead, the procedure took place in Denmark and was an incredible success. Even so, there was one moment of panic within 48 hours of the operation.

“It was on the second day after I’d woken up,” she recalls “I wanted to go for a walk so Jack’s taken me out in my wheelchair. After a while I asked when I could actually walk but he said I couldn’t for a while because the doctors had said so. So then we go back up to the room, he hasn’t let me walk, and put my wheelchair by the window and gone to get us a drink.

“I have no idea what I was thinking but the next thing I can remember is thinking ‘why does my eye hurt?’ I had obviously tried to stand up and faceplanted the floor. So I’ve got a black eye and Jack has had a heart attack.”

It was only then that Chapman was told about what she had been through, the severity of her injuries and what it might mean for the future.

She says: “I don’t remember the waking up part, or wondering where I am or why everyone is there. Jack was drip-feeding me the information but then when I’ve had that fall he just said ‘look Raven, you can’t do this because this has happened to you.’ He gave it to me in a stern way then to get the point across. It was only then that I sort of got the picture of what had gone on.”

Given Chapman (10-2, 3 KOs), a world-ranked all-action fighter, had no history of any similar problems, one of her first questions was how could this have happened? Although they had been competitive, hard spars, there was nothing untoward and Thorslund (25-0, 9 KOs) is not known as a concussive puncher.

“They told me that just because it happened in the spar doesn’t mean it happened there and then,” she says. “Before I went to Denmark, me and Jack were training in Thailand for two weeks before. It could have happened there but it’s only come out during the spar. It could have been a culmination of lots of things.

“Jack is convinced that if I was here in the UK that I wouldn’t have made it. He is convinced that if it had happened when we were here I would have died. Or what if it had happened in Thailand? Who knows what might have happened.

“Honestly from the things that I've been told from the doctors it makes it feel like you're a miracle.”

Chapman speaks to The Ring from her home on the River Thames near Windsor. Her and Jack live on a widebeam house boat and are still adjusting to their lives post-injury.

“When I was in the coma he did not leave my side,” she adds. “He was repatriated back with me. He was there from the day it happened. I know he was in bits, hearing all the things they were saying. He was going to sell the boat to get money so he could look after me. It has definitely been hard on him.

“We bought our boat as a shell and Jack has built everything on the inside. So he’s doing all that and then he has to look after me when it happened. He had actually taken three months off work so he could finish the boat but then that happened to coincide with my injury.

“It meant he could sit with me, be with me in Denmark. He asked me where I wanted to be and I said ‘I just want to be at the boat’ which I can’t remember. But that made him think ‘right, I better finish this boat then.’”

With her recovery ongoing, Chapman fills much of her time walking in nature and helping out on a farm close to where her and Jack’s boat is moored. However, she recently returned to her boxing gym to hit the pads.

“Of course I feel a pull back to boxing,” she says. “And I know my family are worried that I may think like I want to box again.

“I loved hitting the pads, it was nice. As much as I may never spar or fight again, at least I can still hit the pads and the bags. It was really good, I smiled my way through it and had fun.”

Almost immediately, she realizes her choice of words and clarifies the point. “Actually when I say ‘I may never spar again’ Jack will correct me and say ‘no, you’re never sparring again.’

“He will tell it straight. It is a situation where he says if I ever do that, he’s out. He is not going through that again. That’s fair enough and I wouldn’t want to put any of my loved ones through that experience again. As much as the injury happened to me, it happened to everyone around me. I was just asleep, all I had to do was wake up.”

Chapman’s recovery was also aided by an incredible fundraising effort from across British boxing, which began as soon as news of her injury filtered through from Denmark. At the time of writing, more than £97,000 ($128,000) has been raised, a lot of which has been spent on private healthcare since her return to Britain.

“It was not until the day I got repatriated that they told me about all of that,” she says. “I was completely blown away. I’m not a religious person but I’m fairly spiritual and believe in energies and I think that maybe all those good wishes and good energy that people sent my way played a huge part in my recovery. I will be forever grateful.”

Grateful, too, for what can sometimes feel like a second chance at life.

“It definitely makes you appreciate things more,” she adds. “I actually feel way more relaxed about things now. Those little things now I realise just don’t matter.

“It’s a weird one because as much as it happened to me, I feel like people are talking about someone else. I don’t feel like it was me who nearly died. That hasn’t sunk in yet and I’m not sure it ever will. I’m just waiting for everything to hit me.

“I don’t feel as excited about watching the boxing anymore. There’s a sense that I could have achieved so much more. Now I just need to try not to dwell on it too much and look forward to what life has got to offer me now.”