Paralympian Michelle Errichiello says losing her leg in a car accident changed her life for the better

Michelle Errichiello was just 24 when she lost her leg after an out-of-control driver pinned her against a wall. More than a decade on she says setting small goals everyday was what led her to become a Paralympian and world record breaker.

Michelle Errichiello lost her leg and almost died in an accident 12 years ago.

It was 12 years ago, but Michelle Errichiello remembers everything.

From the pain of having her leg severed, to the feeling of a fireman gripping her artery.

She remembers the exhaustion from 13 hours of surgery, and the sound of too many doctors telling her no.

No, you will not walk down the aisle at your wedding.

No, you will not dance on your wedding night.

No, you will never run again.

Michelle Errichiello lost her leg in a horrific car accident 12 years ago.

But more than the pain of almost bleeding to death, she remembers thinking her fiance would no longer want someone who wasn’t whole.

Michelle was just 24 when a driver accidentally hit the accelerator instead of the brake and pinned her against a brick wall, instantly severing her right leg from her body, just below the knee.

She’s now 36, but still remembers being trapped by the car, screaming from excruciating pain and looking down to see a man by her side with his hand inside her thigh.

Mark Errichiello says the accident changed Michelle for the better, making her take risks and strive to be a better person.

“He grabbed my artery and closed it with his hand,” Michelle said.

That man was an off-duty fireman who came running when he heard Michelle’s screams.

A severed artery will bleed out in about five minutes, Michelle said, or two to three minutes if it is a hot day.

It was 38C that morning and the ambulance took 10 minutes to arrive.

When she arrived at the hospital Michelle asked everyone who her doctor was.

“When I found him I said do everything you can to save my leg and he said, I’m sorry it’s already gone. I crumbled. I had hope, I didn’t know my leg had gone on impact,” Michelle said.

“I thought (Mark) wouldn’t want to marry me any more. He proposed to someone that was whole and I’m not that person now and that was devastating,” she said.

But Mark, her fiance, did want to marry her.

Michelle made a promise to herself that by December, she would be able to walk down the aisle and dance at her own wedding.

‘REHAB MODE’

Michelle said she went into “rehab mode” immediately and created tiny goals for herself to achieve.

Michelle Errichiello won a Pride of Australia Courage Medal in 2010.

First it was to sit up in bed and eat breakfast — she slept for two hours after from exhaustion.

Next, she stopped taking morphine and moved from using a wheelchair to crutches so she could take herself to the bathroom.

Then it was time to leave the hospital. Michelle was told she would be there for six months. She left a week-and-a-half after the accident.

Rehab was next. She was told inpatient rehab would take up to a year.

“I couldn’t fathom why I needed to be in that long so I said I’m leaving by next Friday,” she said.

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But she didn’t leave the following Friday. She left on the Wednesday.

“I told the nurse, the physio, the dietitian, every single person, it’s your job to get me out. There was no reason for me to be there, living there onsite. I could be an outpatient,” she said.

LUCKY TO BE ALIVE

One of the key reasons Michelle was so focused on recovery was because of what her dad told her when she woke up after surgery.

“The first thing he did was grab my hand and said, ‘someone was meant to die that day and it wasn’t you’,” she said.

After Michelle was taken to the hospital, the brick wall she was pinned against had to be secured.

A 35-year-old man arrived to secure the wall using a nail gun. But one of the nails ricochet off the wall and into his heart.

He was in surgery the same time Michelle was.

“He passed away and that put everything into perspective for me. He was 35 years old, doing his job, freak accident, and he died,” she said.

Michelle walked down the aisle, danced at her wedding, and made her next goal to reach the London Paralympics in 2012.

She started running with a specially made prosthetic leg and broke two world records in the 200m sprint.

“I hated sport when I was in high school. In my diary, I had a stack of forged notes getting me out of every single P.E. class in high school, I hated it with a passion,” she said.

The small goals she set everyday were what made her go from bedridden amputee to Olympian, she said.

“It was 100 per cent having tiny goals to achieve. The first was eating breakfast, which led me to break world records in running,” she said.

But it wasn’t all medals and glory.

“There have been many tears, in the beginning even stepping up onto the kerb I would fall. There are things that still frustrate the hell out of me,” she said.

THE MENTAL GAME

People stared when she went to the pool. She threw out every skirt and pair of shorts she owned, and sat on the bed and cried at the thought of being seen in her bathers.

But having two daughters, now aged 3 and 6, changed how she saw her disability.

“Now I don’t care, if people over-stare I’ll stare back until they stop,” she said.

“Having two little girls means I needed to own who I am. Because if I’m embarrassed about my body how were they supposed to love themselves?”

Michelle also speaks at schools and corporate events, and even to people who have been made redundant.

She goes through all the emotions that come with recalling a traumatic event.

Her throat closes up, her eyes well, she lets the tears pour down her face.

“I was talking to a group of uni students and one student ran up to me afterwards and grabbed me by the hand and he said you’ve literally saved my life,” she said.

“It wasn’t until then that I really realised I can help people.”

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