Matric pupil Zanele Zondo had every excuse to throw in the towel when she was knocked down by a bus on day two of the matric exams.

But, despite a broken leg, the 18-year-old has refused to give up.

The teenager, from Orlando West, in Soweto, wrote three papers while being treated in hospital and had to be picked up by the school bus and taken to class to sit for other exams.

A bus hit her in Dobsonville, Soweto, while she was walking home after extra maths and science classes. Her leg was crushed between the bus and a parked car.

"It happened so fast. I was screaming," the pupil of Chris J Botha Secondary School, in Bosmont, Johannesburg, said yesterday.

She was taken to Chris Hani-Baragwanath Hospital where she was operated on.

School authorities advised Zondo to write her exams next year, but she refused.

"I have plans. I want to study next year. You have to do what you have to do. It's life."

Zondo, who with 12 relatives survives on her grandmother's pension , wrote two maths papers and an Afrikaans paper during her time in hospital.

"I had to study in hospital. It was difficult. I told myself to ignore the pain, but you can't."

Zondo said nurses told her to study using the light of her cellphone after they switched off the lights at night. Other patients in her ward were very supportive.

She was discharged on November 4 but still walks on crutches.

"I asked myself, 'Why is this happening to me?' but I think I did well."

Her mother, Given Zondo, 37, said she was very proud of her daughter's determination.

"If it were me, I would have written next year. She surprised me."