For wheelchair racer, Veronica Coombes of Shediac Cape, N.B., winning three gold medals at the Canada Games was an achievement she didn’t think would happen a year ago.
“It was early in the morning I was found right here on my floor,” she said in an interview at her home Wednesday. “I had a seizure and I think there was foam coming out of my mouth.”
Coombes was found to have suffered a major seizure and was rushed to the hospital.
It happened as Coombes was training for the 2017 Games and is a moment her mother, Aralee, says is seared in her soul.
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“They did not give us much of a per cent for her to live and if she did, she was not going to have enough awareness to have a full life,” she said.
The award-winning racer, who has spina bifida, spent weeks in a coma following the seizure.
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Her mother, hoping her daughter would wake, held on to the words on her daughter’s closet doors, “Imagine, Dream, Believe,” while believing in the power of love as well as the strength inside her 19-year-old.
“She looks like a lamb on the outside, but she’s got a tiger in there,” Aralee said.
Weeks later, Coombes woke up but said she was crushed by what she saw.
“I could not move my hand whatsoever, it was so painful,” she said.
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Fluid had built up in her hand from the IV doctors had her on during her coma, and doctors told the family there was nothing they could do.
The 19-year-old had to have her middle finger amputated halfway and parts of her other fingers.
Ten years into her racing career, she feared it was over, but her drive pushed her to continue.
She spent 11 and a half months in the hospital and undergoing rehabilitation for her hand and eventually was able to get back in the chair to race.
“Once she realized that she could put her hand into a fist, I can put a glove back on to race,” Aralee said.
Training three times a week over the course of seven months she finally got back up to speed, even though she had to take breaks in between for dialysis treatment — Coombes also has kidney failure.
But despite feeling tired at times, she said she was motivated to keep training.
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About a year-and-a-half after being found on the floor of her home after a seizure, Coombes’ grit and determination to survive paid off and the 19-year-old champion wheelchair racer took home three gold medals in the sport at the Canada Games as well as holding the New Brunswick flag while in the stands.
“I have to dream big, believe in what I can do and imagine where I want to go,” she said.
Her next goal is to bring home gold at the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo.
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