Meet Rebecca! You have probably seen her slinging heavy weights on a platform in the barbell club or winning the Master’s Division of Jingle Bell Jam this year! Maybe you’ve even been lucky enough to get a sports massage from her (If you haven’t you should!). Rebecca shares how CrossFit changed her life!
On February 29, 2020, I had a dirt bike accident that should’ve ended my life, but God spared me. I was riding on a wooded trail in my backyard. I had just rounded a corner and started to accelerate to go uphill when my front tire hit a small stump that was covered with leaves and it immediately veered me into a tree to my right. When my front tire hit the tree, it ejected me into another tree. The right side of my body hit the tree at about 40 miles an hour, shattering my right forearm in 5 places, kicking my leg back so hard that it tore off a hamstring (taking a piece of the bone it was attached to with it), and breaking my nose. I was thrown 200 feet. The impact knocked me out right after I heard my arm shatter.
I awoke in a clearing, looking at the treetops and my first thought was “Wow, I’m alive”. My husband, rushed me to the hospital, where several experts told me that I should not be alive. When they did the x-rays of my arm, they told me that it if my bones and muscles hadn’t been so dense they wouldn’t have been able to absorb the impact and my abdomen would have burst open and I would’ve died.
My arm was so shattered that it took a spine surgeon to piece it back together. I have two rods, five plates, and 14 screws in my right forearm. I was also warned that I may never feel my arm again due to the nerve damage. Two months later, after my arm healed, I had my hamstring reattached. A couple of months later I had to have my gallbladder removed because it had died from the blunt force trauma. Two months later I finally had surgery on my nose to put the septum back in place.
Before and after all of these surgeries, my CrossFit coaches (especially Coach Cassie) and fellow Crossfitters cheered me on and helped me still find ways to move my body so that I could stay healthy and strong.
I had a year of no surgeries, and then in January of 2022 I had to have a surgery to remove 14 masses because I had developed endometriosis. I also lost my fallopian tubes and my left ovary (it had been burst open by a tumor) in that surgery. Then, in June 2024, I had another surgery to remove 11 more masses, including my uterus.
I celebrated completing eight years of CrossFit on December 17, 2024. I am a 44 year old mother of 4, Massage Therapist, and now an Olympic style lifter. I’m not saying that you have to do CrossFit, but find something that moves your body and keeps you healthy and strong. Your life may very well depend on it.
