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February 22, 2002
A journey back from death
Accident victim inspires others with her story of physical recovery.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
The fact that Kim Gale is alive today is nothing short of a miracle.
That she walks with only a slight limp, has been asked by her rehab
doctor to start counselling some of his patients, and volunteers
at the Louis Brier Home and Hospital is a testament to her emotional
and physical strength.
Gale was in a catastrophic car accident almost eight years ago in
which she was seriously injured. She will be sharing her remarkable
story of recovery at the Women's Health Forum at Beth Israel next
month.
An advertising executive with the nickname Gale Force, Gale was
on her way into Vancouver from Richmond for a meeting on her last
day of work before a scheduled five-week vacation in 1994. On her
way over the Oak Street Bridge, she was involved in a serious collision
that sent her to the hospital in critical condition and caused one
fatality. It was the last fatality on that bridge before the centre
barricade was built.
The list of her injuries makes it almost impossible to believe she
could have survived. She broke her ribs, arms, hip, pelvis, back
and thigh, her feet were crushed, her lungs collapsed, her spleen
was removed, her liver and pancreas were damaged, her diaphragm
was ripped open, her bladder was ruptured, she had a head injury
and needed plastic surgery.
In the first week after the accident, Gale said there were two times
when she was almost put on life support. She was also told that
she would always walk with a severe limp, "like a 90-year-old
woman."
In a wheelchair for two years, Gale underwent eight operations in
those years. As well, for a full two years, she worked out every
day at the University of British Columbia Sports Medicine Clinic.
During that time, she encountered people like Pavel Bure and Rick
Hansen at the facility and she started to appreciate their hard
work and determination to keep their bodies in tune and also to
bring their bodies back into shape after they've been injured.
Gale was 37 at the time of the accident. She had two children under
the age of 10, Joshua and Talia, who are now 15 and 12, respectively.
They have provided Gale with much of her strength and determination
to get better.
"I had very young children at home at the time and I just told
myself that I was not going to stay in a wheelchair, I wasn't going
to limp around like an old lady," she said. "I was going
to make myself rehabilitate and give myself back all the freedom
that I had lost. I was absolutely determined to do it. Before the
accident, I had never gone into a gym, I had never lifted a bar
bell. I had a high-powered career in the advertising business, so
I was a career person and a mom, but never had any interest or any
time to do anything physically."
Though wheelchair-bound, Gale occasionally helped out at Vancouver
Talmud Torah.
"All the kids would be clambering to push me and help me through
the school. It was quite an experience and I actually also realized
that, even in my horrible, decrepit state, even little boys wanted
to reach out to me. It's been a really insightful journey that I've
been through."
Gale tried to go back to work in advertising, but it was difficult
emotionally and physically. She couldn't do it in the end, she said,
despite the fact that her company - Scali McCabe Sloves - was very
supportive.
"No one gave up on me," said Gale, adding that she was
motivated to rehabilitate better than anybody because that was the
gift she could give back to all of the people who supported her.
Gale praised her network of family and friends, her medical team
and her physical trainer, Bev Friedlander, a ballet dancer by profession,
with whom Gale has worked at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater
Vancouver for the past four years.
"She comes at [the training] in a different way than just giving
me brute strength. I work very much on my posture, on my stance,
on my body core and I do work where I stand in front of a mirror
finding my centre of gravity and, you know, all of those things
that your brain has to be retrained to do."
Gale said she will likely be in some kind of rehab for the rest
of her life, but she feels that she is a better person for what
she has experienced.
"People sense what I've been through and people open up to
me all the time. I think that's a great gift and it's a real privilege
to have that."
The Women's Health Forum is March 3. Gale's talk is aptly titled
A Journey of Hope. Other speakers at the day-long forum include
Dr. Jonathan Berkowitz on Healthy Skepticism: Separating Fact from
Fiction in Medical Literature, Lenore Riddell on Midlife Issues,
Drs. Helen Nadel and Moira Stilwell on Osteoporosis: A Child's Disease?
and Dr. Karen Gelmon on Breast Cancer.
The forum is sponsored by Beth Israel Women's League, Beth Tikvah
Women's League, Har-El Sisterhood and B.C. Women's Hospital and
Health Centre Foundation. It takes place at Beth Israel Synagogue,
4350 Oak St., 10 a.m.-2 p.m., with registration at 9:30 a.m. The
cost is $20 in advance, $30 at the door, and includes lunch. To
register and if you need a ride to the forum, call the Beth Israel
office at 604-731-4161.
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