SHORT TAKES : Estefan Tells Invalidism Fears

Gloria Estefan of the Miami Sound Machine, who broke her back in a bus crash in March, says she has always feared becoming an invalid.

“I’ve had a premonition all my life that I would become a burden to the people I love,” the 32-year-old singer said in the June 25 issue of People. “That’s why when we began building our house (in 1987), I had an elevator put in.”

Estefan said when she was lying in her tour bus after it was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer March 20, “I thought, ‘Here it is. This is the thing I’ve been waiting for.’ ”

The singer has been working out on exercise machines three times a week and has recovered to the point she can put on her shoes by herself.

Although the recovery could take a year, Estefan said she is eager to get back on stage “and be better than before, to show people that their prayers were not wasted.”