Aussie battler shows how to laugh at death's door | Canterbury Sport | Surfing, Rugby, Soccer, Football, Cricket in Canterbury

Who would let a little thing like nearly bleeding to death slip by without a laugh? Not former Canterbury Tactix netballer Demelza McCloud.

The defender, recruited by Southern Steel this season, has always had a devilish sense of humour.

But her ability to revel in every grim detail of a serious accident that nearly killed her sets her apart from the more regular comedians among us.

The 31-year-old slipped in the shower at her Adelaide home in October - her elbow shattered a ceramic shelf and her tricep muscle was "split open like a chicken breast".

She just escaped severing a major artery and was lying in the middle of a "murder scene" trying to call an ambulance on her smart phone. "My phone wouldn't work because it was wet and I was bleeding so much," she said. "I dried it off and finally got through to the ambulance."

Emergency staff advised her to lie down and wait for the paramedics to arrive. "I lay down and kept saying, 'Please apologise to them that I'm not clothed'."

The paramedics had to break through the door and "follow the blood smear".

Once in the hands of a surgeon, McCloud had a cheeky suggestion. "I asked the surgeon for plastic surgery, as in breast implants. I told him I'd done all the incisions and all he needed to do was put the silicon in."

McCloud played nine tests for Australia and the Steel is her fourth ANZ Championship side in five years. Her friend and former Tactix teammate, Jodi Brown, also at the Steel, told her to come back here.