When Bree, 17, lived through an accident that took her leg, her drive to compete kicked into even higher gear—and with the help of her team, she’s determined to get back on the field.
As told to: Jessica Press
One perfectly sunny Saturday last fall, my club soccer team was holding a car wash fund-raiser and having the best time. We were in shorts and bikinis and had so much to be happy about—we’d won our games the weekend before and we were excited for a game the next day. Plus I’d just accepted a soccer scholarship to Brevard College, a division II school that I couldn’t wait to play for! We were psyched to make our final club team year awesome, and take our early lead as far as we could. I play pretty much every position, from offense to goal, and my team nickname was the Beast, because I’m really aggressive, I don’t let injuries stop me, and I hate losing.
Halfway through the car wash, my teammate Chelsea wanted to get her SUV washed, so she jumped in her car as I pointed her to an empty spot. But as she was pulling in, her foot slipped; she was wearing flip-flops, and she pressed too hard on the gas. Her car flew at me, pinning me against a wall! I collapsed as blood started gushing around me. Chelsea ran to me, saying, “I’m so sorry—I love you, I’m sorry!” “It’s okay,” I said. I was woozy and tried take deep breaths to stay calm. “I love you too.”
An ambulance took me to the hospital, where my boyfriend, Shane, was waiting to hug and kiss me and tell me everything would be okay. But I must have been in total shock, because I couldn’t even cry.
FAST-FORWARD
The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a hospital room surrounded by my parents, my two brothers, and Shane—it was six days later! The doctors had put me in a coma to spare me the tremendous pain and shock I’d have felt during the surgeries I needed. I woke up feeling numb and out of it, but when I reached down to feel my leg, all I felt was a pillow. “Where’s my leg?” I asked. That’s when the doctor started talking in a calm voice, saying it had come down to losing my left leg, or losing my life—the blood flow to my leg had been severed—and my leg had to go. In that moment, my “Beast” attitude kicked right in: all I could think about was getting back on the field to play soccer. “When can I run?” I asked. The doctor said it would take months of physical therapy with a prosthetic leg before I’d be at that point. I made the doctor show me what was left of my legs—the wounds were so deep that they looked like train tracks running over my skin. It was really hard to see—you never think your own body will scare you. But I willed myself to look at it; I’d never been afraid, and I’d always faced things instead of hiding from them. And when my team visited, the first thing I did was show them too: I wanted it to be out in the open, something we didn’t ignore or whisper about. I’d never had fakeness with my friends, and I didn’t want it now.
NEW GOAL
I spent the next 32 days in the hospital and had eight surgeries. The doctors had told my parents that I might not be able to use my right leg again, either. But I felt like that was just a bigger dare to prove everyone wrong.
So I started doing physical rehab every day—when I thought I couldn’t take the pain of it, I’d remind myself of my goal: to get on the field. And two months later, I did what I set out to do and shocked my doctors—I wiggled my toes, moved my ankle, and was on my way to walking with a prosthetic!
Some days are still so hard: there are nights when I wake up from horrible pain in my leg. “Stop hurting!” I plead with my foot, literally talking to it. There are times when I want to go back to the way things were—like when I can’t get to a bathroom without help, or when I look at my leg and don’t recognize it as my own. Shane has been amazing about getting me over my self-consciousness: “I never dated your leg,” he said. “I date you—and you’re still beautiful.” And my teammates have been incredible—they visited me every day, they held bake sales to raise money for me, and, most important, they still include me when they hang out and treat me the same as before. As much as we love soccer, we love each other more and are just as loyal off the field as we are when we’re on it.
But it’s not just my friends who have shown me incredible support: my school coach chose me as a team captain—I wore my captain armband to every game as I cheered from the bench. And the coach at Brevard College said he still wants me on the team—the scholarship is still mine! That makes me even more determined to get on the field and to fulfill my dreams of becoming a phys-ed teacher and high school soccer coach. I know this may sound crazy, but if this accident had to happen to anyone on my team, I’m glad it was to me. I’ve always been tough, and this has just made me tougher—and more sure about what I want in life.