A GoFundMe campaign has been launched to help a City of Kawartha Lakes woman who will be undergoing a leg amputation later this month.
Beth Collins of Fenelon Falls will face surgery on May 23 — the end result following a workplace accident in August 2016 when the forklift she was on failed.
“I just remember looking down and seeing my foot hanging off,” she said. “We were about 20 feet in the air and the hydraulics let go and we just slammed to the ground.”
Collins’ right ankle shattered into eight pieces; the fibula and tibia also snapped.
“I just remember saying, ‘I’d never run with my grandson again,'” she said.
Following 10 surgeries and a bone graft that was unsuccessful, infection set into her leg last November.
Doctors told her the only option remaining was an amputation below the knee.
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“Try and hop around for 21 months on your one leg — it’s not that easy,” she said.
Much to her surprise, Collins’ sister Laura — who lives in Bermuda — launched a GoFundMe campaign with a goal of $10,000. Nearly $4,700 has been raised in a month.
“As shocking and upsetting that is for a woman who has suffered so much, Beth is ready to face this challenge,” Laura wrote.
The funds will help support Collins as the recovery requires a prosthetic, therapy and home renovations. Home insurance and Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) payments won’t cover it all.
“It’s amazing, some of the people that I don’t even know that have donated,” Collins said. “So hopefully, with the GoFundMe, that people will give so we don’t have to lose our home.”
Once she recuperates, Collins says she had some goals.
“Run a marathon in 2020; get down to Bermuda to see my sister, put my foot in the ocean and enjoy my grandson again.”
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