The girl who had the accident

The accident that came to shape Lisa’s life happened three months after her first birthday. She was run over by a car.

“The front and back wheel went over my head,” she says. “My eyes were pushed out and my ear was almost cut off, it was just hanging by a little bit of skin. I was unconscious for 32 days and the doctors said there was no hope I would make it.”

Lisa (a pseudonym) beat the odds and went on to a productive life as a Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) volunteer and Sunday school teacher for 30 years. But it wasn’t easy. She suffered a life of challenges that resulted from that accident when she was a baby.

Born in 1951 in southern Manitoba, Lisa grew up in a town of 4,000 people. She started school with everyone her age, but by Grade 8 classes became too difficult for her to continue. Times of dark discouragement came as she grew older and saw her life was different from those around her, particularly in the way she processes her thoughts and relates to others.

“I would see what my [younger] sister was doing, and I felt that I should be doing the same thing,” she says. “It bothered me immensely.”

Lisa became the poster child in her family as “the girl who had the accident.”

Eventually she moved to Winnipeg and began a cafeteria job. After about five years, she attended Bible school, receiving her Sunday school and clubs teaching certificate. She returned home, found a job and got married in 1974.

Life’s pain had not ended for her, however, as she became pregnant in 1977 and labour complications arose. “[My daughter] was all blue when they took her out,” Lisa recalls. “Then they said, ‘Something is wrong, she is not breathing.’ I can still see them pumping air into her as I was on the stretcher. They said [my baby] was a girl, but they had to rush her off.”

The daughter’s esophagus and windpipe were not fully developed, making eating and breathing difficult. Four months after birth, the child continued to vomit when fed, leaving tube-feeding as the only option.

After 13 months in the hospital, the family was finally able to go home. “It was an awful struggle,” she says. “I had to feel on her stomach whether the feeding tube had gone down her stomach and not into her lungs. If it had gone into her lungs, this would be the end of it. She would fight it with me so terribly.”

Lisa’s child became malnourished, leaving her mother discouraged. “I felt I was doing such a rotten job in trying to look after her,” Lisa says. “I just felt awful.”

As Lisa faced the daily challenge of feeding her daughter, she found hope in Scripture. “I had her sitting in the high chair and then with every spoon, I quoted, ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’”

Finally her daughter began eating solid food, but frequent hospital visits continued. Family life at home grew difficult and the marriage between Lisa and her husband fell apart.

Despite everything she has faced, Lisa has impacted young lives through three decades as a Sunday school teacher and her numerous hours volunteering at the local MCC Thrift Store. Much of her days are now spent tying blankets that are used in MCC relief kits.

Lisa has proved it is possible to make it through the grimmest circumstances as she faces everything that comes her way with a renewed spirit of strength and trust, knowing she will be protected.

The Voice of the Voiceless articles were written for Canadian Mennonite University’s Journalism: Practices and Principles course during the Winter 2013 semester. Teacher Carl DeGurse is vice-chair of Canadian Mennonite’s board of directors and assistant city editor of the Winnipeg Free Press.