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Tragedy won't stop Danica McPhee

If it had to be her last evening with the use of her legs, 23-year-old Danica McPhee said she couldn't have asked for a better one. She and her boyfriend, Eduardo Villada, were at a resort in Cancun, Mexico on Feb.
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Danica McPhee (centre) with her parents, Cory and Mary McPhee, at St. Michael's Hospital. Supplied photo.
If it had to be her last evening with the use of her legs, 23-year-old Danica McPhee said she couldn't have asked for a better one.

She and her boyfriend, Eduardo Villada, were at a resort in Cancun, Mexico on Feb. 19 to celebrate Villada's mother's 50th birthday.

They'd gone dancing at the resort's disco, and had decided to go down to the beach.

It was then that things went terribly wrong.

Danica had called out to her boyfriend that she'd beat him to the beach, and jumped off a 10-foot-tall wall. She thought she was jumping onto sand, but it turned out to be concrete.

“My boyfriend and his brother were there, and were saying 'Are you OK, are you OK?'” said Danica, who grew up in Whitefish but has been living in Toronto in recent years.

“I tried to stand up. I thought 'Oh yeah, it doesn't hurt, I'm going to stand up.' But I couldn't, and I just couldn't feel my legs. It was terrifying.”

What Danica later found out was she'd injured her L1 vertebrae, causing her to lose most feeling from the waist down.

She was brought to a Mexican hospital. Danica said she doesn't remember much about her experience there because she was on so many painkillers, but said Villada and her family had a difficult time arranging for her care.

That's because she wasn't covered under the Villada family's travel insurance, and the Mexican health-care system requires up-front payment for everything.

While Danica was lying semi-conscious in a Mexican hospital, her parents, Cory and Mary McPhee, were on the phone with their credit card company, trying to extend their spending limit so it would cover her hospital bills.

“It makes you really thankful for the system we have, because everything revolves around money,” said Cory, who is Vale's vice-president of corporate affairs. “You feel so helpless when you're so far away in Canada.”

After undergoing emergency surgery in Mexico, Danica was airlifted to St. Michael's hospital in Toronto. The total bill for Danica's care in Mexico and the air transportation came to more than $100,000.

“As much as she was drugged and on a backboard and sitting in an emergency department, it just felt so good to see her physically, and be able to talk to her and hold her hand,” Cory said.

But Danica's journey was just beginning. She underwent another surgery at St. Michael's, where her spine was stabilized with pins and rods.

After spending a week in hospital, she was transferred to the Lyndhurst rehabilitation facility in Toronto. There she spent a month learning skills such as transferring in and out of a wheelchair.

Danica did so well with her rehabilitation that she was able to be discharged from the facility April 3 — about a month early.

Although her doctors say it's unlikely she'll ever walk again, Danica said she hasn't given up hope.

“They say the spine stays in shock for like nine months or so, so really it's just a waiting game until then,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Sudbury community is rallying around the McPhee family. On April 26, a fundraising event dubbed An Evening for Danica will take place starting at 7 p.m. at the Collège Boréal restaurant.

The event includes a light buffet, a silent auction and live entertainment by the Shaft Bottom Boys. Tickets to the event cost $50, and are available at the door, or by visiting team-danica.weebly.com.

Proceeds from the event go towards Danica's Mexican medical bills and ongoing expenses related to her disability.

The whole family will be travelling back to Sudbury to attend the event. Danica said she's excited to see friends and family members there.

In the meantime, Danica, along with her boyfriend, has moved back into her parents' Toronto home. Her family has been busy adding lifts so she can still access everything.

She said she's doing her best to be independent, although she finds it frustrating she can't do everything she used to.

Danica said she hopes to eventually go back to George Brown College, where she'd been studying American Sign Language until she was injured.

This summer, she'll also be attending a program to learn adaptive recreational activities, such as using a hand-pedal bicycle. Danica and Villada also hope to eventually move out on their own again.

“She's shown a lot of maturity for somebody who's so young,” Cory said.

“Like all of us, she's had her down moments. She cries, and she's worried about the future. But she's come to the realization that she can have an incredibly full life, and realize all her goals, whether she does that from a chair or not.”

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Heidi Ulrichsen

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