w w w . o a kv ill eb ea ve r.c o m O A KV IL LE B EA V ER Fr id ay , Se pt em be r 3 , 2 01 0 3 0 By Carlie Oreskovich SPECIAL TO THE BEAVER Looking at Melissa Vassalloacross the table, it is hard tobelieve this attractive young woman, with lively eyes and warm smile, was so damaged in a car colli- sion eight years ago, her heart stopped three times. Lately she has been turning that tragedy, which kept her hospitalized for six years, into a personal mission to promote accessibility programs for the disabled. In 2002 Vassallo, then 22, was a passenger in a Ford Explorer with four friends on their way to a sailing regatta in Florida. All were Queen's University stu- dents taking the spring break from studies, when the SUV left the high- way near Savannah, Georgia. No one knows why it happened and no other cars were involved, but the results were devastating. When the car slipped into the gravel shoulder of the highway, the driver apparently over corrected and the car went into a ditch and rolled over sixteen times. Two died immediately; one of the students sitting on the passenger side of the front went through the windshield and was pronounced dead at the scene; a girl sitting in the rear seat on the right side hit her head and died instantly; the driver had a broken arm and leg; the student sit- ting in the middle in the back had a broken thumb and went back to school the next week. Vassallo, sitting behind the driver, was wearing a seat belt which kept her from being thrown around or ejected from the car. Technically Vassallo survived the crash. But she was so seriously pitched about, her heart had to be shocked into activity three times. The seat belt saved her, but the internal damage caused by the restraint was extreme. The hospital recorded 82 injuries caused by the impact; as well as a fractured spine, a number of her internal organs were bruised and damaged, her lungs had collapsed, her heart was so trauma- tized it was shutting down, more than 50 bones were broken, both knees were fractured and both ankles broken and all were later fused, she had to have an aortic stent and her intestines were so severely damaged, two thirds of her digestive tract had to be removed. Melissa's mother Angela Vassallo, said it was the most devastating moment in her life. Getting the call that every moth- er fears getting; that their child is deathly injured and in another coun- try, hundreds and hundreds of miles away. It is so terrifying that you can't believe it's real, said Angela. The emergency treatment doctor in charge, Dr. Gage Ochsner, chief of trauma at Savannah's Memorial University Medical Center asked her if she wanted to live. Do you want to live or do you want to die? he asked. Melissa remembers answering emphatically, I want to live. The doctor knew a large part of her recovery would have to come from within her own resources. He knew that he needed to have some- one who wanted to live in order for the recovery to succeed and he was making sure she knew that and he told her: It's not going to be the same life. Do you want to live? She did, even though at times she would be pushed to the limits of what she could tolerate. On the continuum between life and death, the scale had definitely swung closer to death. Her mother says the doctor described the injuries as catastrophic and listed the damages. I was trying to absorb what he was saying and the words were bouncing off the wall, she said. Dr. Ochsner was readying them for what they were about to see, but nothing could prepare her for the sight of her daughter on the gurney, her faced swelled and distorted, with wires and tubes connected to banks of beeping-blinking machines. Other than her long blond hair, she was virtually unrecognizable, her mother noted, the memory of that night still unnerving her. It was a long hard battle getting to where she is today and Melissa is far from finished. She has had to LivingOakville Beaver LIVING EDITOR: ANGELA BLACKBURN Phone: 905-337-5560 Fax: 905-337-5571 e-mail: ablackburn@oakvillebeaver.com Melissa Vassallo has overcome many obstacles ERIC RIEHL/ OAKVILLE BEAVER SPEAKING OUT: Wheels in Motion co-leader and co-chair Melissa Vassallo speaks at the eighth annual Rick Hansen Wheels in Motion event in Oakville. See Crash page 3