Lisa Parkes reveals her journey from a horrific car accident to becoming a world champion
Laying on the ground in a country thousands of kilometres from home with a broken back and neck aged 18, Lisa Parkes was told she would never walk again. Now a world champion at age 52, she dreams of making her Olympic debut in 2028.
Waking up on a concrete floor in South Africa unable to walk, Lisa Parkes’ life could have all come crashing down when her car was hit by a drunk driver.
At the age of 18, she was told she would never walk again as the accident left her with a broken back and neck.
However, despite being stuck alone in a hospital in a country thousands of kilometres from her home and family, Parkes decided this was not going to be her story.
“I was hit by a drunk driver the day before I was about to compete in the World Aerobics Championships,” she said.
“I was travelling to the place I was staying so I had everything I owned in the car.
“The guy hit me, I can’t even remember too much but he was drunk.
“I can remember that because he came over and then the police turned up and then being in Africa, he paid the policemen off, he drove off scot-free.
“I was getting cut out of the car, while I was getting cut out from the car, everything was being stolen from me.
“And then I woke up on a concrete floor with man over the top of me yelling ‘who are you, where did you come from?’
“I remember looking up at him and going, this is so not my story, don’t give me that story, that’s not my story.”
Her determination to refuse to be beaten lit a spark in her which not only helped her through recovering from the incident, but gave her a new lease on life.
“I grew up in Europe so I was a very long way from home,” she recalls.
“So it was a really challenging time but also a really amazing time, it made me a really strong person and it give me a whole purpose.
“I had a fairly decent idea of what I wanted to do, but it gave me even more purpose and more meaning of what to do.
“It’s scary, but I just didn’t read into it.
“I just didn’t, I wasn’t taking that on board and I generally live my life like that now.”
Parkes was forced to rehabilitate for two years in South Africa, away from her family as they could not afford to fly her home and was told she might never walk again.
Her recovery process included undergoing tremor therapy which has influenced her athletic work today.
“Tremor therapy is where you put yourself almost into fittings, so your whole body is shaking and it’s a way that you read the neural pathways,” Parkes said.
“So a lot of the training I do now, I use vibration and I use a lot of the elements, like air and water so that when people are training that’re doing it on uneven surfaces.
“It kind of to a certain degree puts a certain amount of stress on the nervous system, but then reboots the neural pathways.”
Incredibly, she not only learned how to walk and use her arms again, but came back stronger than ever and years later found her calling in obstacle course racing.
The sport has seen her travel across the globe, compete in the hit TV series Ninja Warrior and at the age of 51, became a world champion in the sport last year in Costa Rica.
“The reason I like the sport so much is life is always full of obstacles and it’s a matter of working out mentally and physically how to overcome them,” she said.
“And there’s never really something I can’t do, there’s just a way of finding a way of how to do it, I think that’s how I kind of have a philosophy for life.
“So I found the obstacle course racing for me has been like such a great coping mechanism for life.”
The sport will make its Olympic debut in 2028 and Parkes, now 52, dreams of competing in the Los Angeles Games.
“I wanted to go to the Olympics as a kid as a gymnast and I kind of started gymnastics too late in life and then missed my call there because of my age, I was too old,” she said.
“So that was a little bit sad, but it’s kind of like the ultimate achievement in sport, to go to the Olympic Games.
“To go to the Olympic Games in a sport that’s new and upcoming and fun and that I do with my children, that we could almost do together at the Olympics would be awesome.”
Parkes is set to compete in the upcoming YOHKA Obstacle Course Racing 100m World Series event on the Gold Coast and was eager to compete in a competition which is close to her home in Byron Bay.
“It’s really exciting to have something close to home because most of the competitions have been overseas and we haven’t had funding or the sport hasn’t really taken off until YOHKA have got involved in now and are running them around Australia,” she said.
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