Edmonton woman defies odds; takes part in first fitness competition

EDMONTON- When Vanessa Rogers was 16-years-old never in her wildest dreams did she think she’d be where she is today, at age 30.

In August 1999, the Edmonton woman was coming home from a wedding with her sister when their vehicle hit an illegal amount of gravel on the road, lost control and flipped.

“It went airborne on my sister’s side and on my side the roof came down on the top of my head and the sunroof shattered and went to the front part of my head. So then my neck buckled and I broke my neck in four places.

“I was left paralyzed from the neck down,” Rogers explained. “I was deemed a complete quadriplegic… It was the scariest thing ever, going from having absolutely everything to having absolutely nothing in an instant.”

“We were trying to prepare ourselves for the fact that she would be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life,” added her mother, Delphene Balan.

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Rogers, a normally upbeat and positive woman, says she went through bouts of depression in the weeks following the accident; something her mother says was difficult to see.

“All you can think of is their future. As parents we typically think of their future as being very bright and very promising,” Balan said. “Then when the accident happened of course you’re thinking of her future as being challenging and always hard for her.

“Nobody wants to see their children struggle.”

But two months later that all started to change when Rogers began slowly moving her toes and legs.

“I was on the phone and all of a sudden she started screaming and crying saying ‘mom, you have to look,'” Balan recalled. “And she was moving them on her own. I said ‘you’re kidding me? You’re moving your legs on your own?'”

“Everyone freaked out because when you get paralyzed it’s a permanent injury, you don’t come out of it,” Rogers added.

Rogers went through an intense rehabilitation process which involved her learning how to walk all over again. Within five months she was able to walk with the assistance of walker and within 10 months she was walking with a cane.

“The fact that I’m walking at all is less than one per cent chance, so I’m extremely, extremely lucky,” Rogers said.

After being inspired by her mother, who is a personal trainer and bodybuilder, Rogers began working out in the gym “to prove people wrong and to say ‘hey, look, you don’t think I can do it? I can do it,'” Rogers said.

She still walks with the help of a cane, but after years of hard work, Rogers took part in her very first fitness competition Saturday, the 2013 muscle beach fall classic.

“Very proud, of course,” Balan said of her daughter, with a big smile on her face.

“The thing is Vanessa never stopped being dynamic,” she said. “For her to get to this point, it doesn’t surprise me at all, actually.”

And no matter the result Saturday, Rogers says she’s just proud of the fact that she can walk out on the stage at all. She plans to continue fitness competition both for herself and to inspire others.

“Anytime it’s hard, whether it’s in daily life or whether it’s for competing, of course I’m going to push through it because I could be in a wheelchair right now, I’m supposed to be in a wheelchair right now and I’m not.

“I was given a second chance and that’s why I believe in myself and I portray that to everybody. Live each day like it’s your last,” she said. “Now I experience life. I do everything I can do.”

Rogers came in third place in Saturday’s event, qualifying her for provincials.

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With files from Quinn Phillips, Global News.