Miracle Crash

This headline in Yahoo Cycling News caught my attention this morning - "Paralympian eyes Olympic glory after “miracle” crash." The story behind it is absolutely amazing:

Monique van der Vorst, a Paralympic silver medalist, has miraculously become an able-bodied Olympic hopeful after a crash reversed her paralysis. Paralyzed from the hip down since she was 13, the 27-year-old handcyclist was hit by a bicycle last year while training in her wheelchair for the 2012 London Paralympics. While recovering from the trauma, van der Vorst’s feet started to tingle and miraculously she began to move them again. From that point on she spent months in the hospital and in the rehabilitation center trying to regain the use of her legs.

She told Reuters that when she took her first steps again in July 2010, she felt just like a child learning to walk. “I wanted to jump in the air for joy,” van der Vorst said this week, and recalled how great and surprising it was to look at herself standing in front of a mirror.

Her website says this:

My life has been full of challenges, after becoming disabled at age 13 I didn’t give up, I looked for opportinities to live life at the fullest and became a professional atlete. I have a mission to take myself to the highest level possible. After winning the World Championships Ironman, I was on a fast track to the Paralympic Games in London 2012.

But... everything suddenly changed.

After an accident in 2010 my body started to change and after a long/hard rehab period I am back on my own feet again! For me a new competition has started now, I don’t know were or when it is gonna finish but I will succeed and I will run!

Can you imagine? I don't know how she became paralyzed in the first place, but think about the terror of being hit while in her wheelchair. Back in the hospital wondering what was going to happen next when legs that had been dormant for 12 years start having feeling again. Simply amazing!

We will never understand all the "crashes" that come our way, but they may be the step to our greatest miracle! I love this quote from Monique's website "If you don’t like something, change it, if you can’t change it, change your attitude, but don’t complain..." Ride on, Monique!