Survived terrible car crash: goalkeeper makes her comeback 731 days after breaking her neck

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The New Zealand team Wellington Phoenix started the new season on Sunday with a 0-1 defeat against Melbourne City. But the defeat still felt like a victory for one player: Rylee Foster (25).

731 days after a terrible accident, the Canadian goalkeeper was back between the posts. An impressive achievement. “The injury I suffered is known to kill you instantly – unless you become paralyzed,” Foster told British media.

Brain haemorrhage and broken neck

On October 16, 2021, she was thrown through the windshield into a field in a car accident in Finland. What followed: a nightmare. The then Liverpool player was operated on in hospital due to a brain haemorrhage, suffered fractures in her neck and had no feeling in her legs for days. When this returned and her condition improved, she was allowed to fly to England.

There the next shock. She had not three, but seven fractures in her neck. Any move could have had devastating consequences, and doctors had to act immediately. They gave her a halo – a metal frame in which the head was clamped with screws.

“It was torture, I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy,” Foster recalled to the Australian league. “I just fainted. It was the worst pain I have ever experienced.” The doctors said she would never play football again.

But Foster didn’t give up. Nothing happened for months and it became increasingly likely that her neck was becoming stiff. But then the tests showed that the bones had grown together. There was still a long way to go, after the halo a neck brace became a daily companion.

“Why did I survive?”

During the two years of rehabilitation, Foster reached her limits not only physically but also mentally. “I ask myself every day why I survived. It’s like a demon I’m fighting,” she reveals. She takes antidepressants and hasn’t given up on her football dream, not even when her contract with Liverpool expired or when she missed her medical treatment at Celtic this summer.

She eventually ended up in New Zealand. And sees the name of her club as a symbol of its history. Because the way Foster fought back made her rise like a phoenix from the ashes. (beer)

Source : Blick