After a traumatic bike accident, Leanne Taylor embraced parasports during her rehabilitation at HSC and is now heading to Paris for the 2024 Paralympics
Leanne Taylor will be competing in the Para triathlon at the Paris Paralympics on Sept. 2.
A life-altering injury in 2018 deprived Leanne Taylor of her ability to walk. Now, after six years of hard work and determination, she has become a world-class athlete in Para triathlon and will be representing Canada at the 2024 Paris Paralympics.
“I decided early on that I wanted to build a life after the injury that was so positive that I wouldn’t want to undo it,” Taylor says. “And, after qualifying for the Paralympics, I think for the first time I can say, yes, I’ve done that.”
In the summer of 2018, at the age of 24, Taylor’s life took a dramatic turn when she was mountain biking along the Bison Butte Trail in southwest Winnipeg. A sudden bump sent her over the handlebars, resulting in a bleed at her eighth thoracic vertebra.
Taylor was rushed to Health Sciences Centre (HSC). Emergency surgery was swiftly undertaken, but despite doctor’s best efforts, Taylor was paralyzed from the belly button down.
Scans of Leanne Taylor’s spine before (left) and after surgery (right).
For Taylor, the timely care she received at HSC helped her to accept her new reality and eased her transition into recovery.
“If the surgery hadn’t been done right away, my outcome could have been worse. I genuinely feel like I received the best care, which is such a gift going forward,” she says. “Being able to say, ‘We did everything, and this is the best we can expect’ is relieving for a person and allows them to move on with their life and say, ‘OK, what’s next?’ That led me to be in such a good place to then discover para sports.”
Leanne Taylor and her husband Scott at HSC shortly after her surgery.
Following her surgery, Taylor stayed at HSC’s RR5 Specialty Adult Rehab Inpatient Unit. The unit typically works with patients who are recovering from spinal cord injuries, amputations, and neuromuscular disorders to build functional independence and quality of life.
Leanne Taylor working on her rehabilitation at HSC’s RR5 Unit.
During her rehabilitation journey, Taylor encountered a pivotal opportunity: the chance to explore adaptive sports. Adaptive sports are sports that are modified to allow people with physical and mental disabilities to participate.
“We had a lovely experience with Taylor Hurley, who was one of the recreational therapists at HSC. While I was still a patient, she took me to the track to watch former Paralympian Colin Mathieson and introduced me to a sports wheelchair,” Taylor remembers.
While at the track under the guidance of Hurley, Taylor’s passion for competitive para sports was born.
“The racing wheelchair was the first time I was able to get my heart rate up and get that feeling of working hard. Newly injured, I didn’t know that I was going to have that. It makes you confident in what your body can do and confident in what it will be able to do.”
Leanne Taylor in her racing wheelchair while competing at a World Triathlon event.
She adds that finding sport gave her motivation to tackle some of the difficult aspects of rehab.
“Sport gives you motivation to do things in a way that feels positive instead of preventing negative things,” she says, explaining that one of the first tasks was learning how to transfer herself from the floor into a wheelchair.
“This was one of my very first goals because then I could go to the pool and swim by myself. Sport gave me a positive reason to do the difficult things and not just, ‘so you can get back up when you fall.’”
The three events in a Para triathlon are a 750-metre swim, 20-kilometre cycle, and a five-kilometre run.
Taylor competed in her first Paralympic race eight months after her accident. Since then, she has established herself as a top triathlete with consecutive top-five finishes at the last two World Championships (fifth in 2023, fourth in 2022).
She is currently ranked third in the world in women’s PTWC (wheelchair classification). Over her career, she has earned three victories and 10 medals in 24 races sanctioned by World Triathlon. She has collected five silver medals (2022, 2023, and 2024) and a bronze (2022) in the World Triathlon World Series circuit.
This year, she also won gold in the women’s PTWC at the Americas Championships in Miami and was Canadian champion in 2019.
In June 2024, Taylor clinched her first gold medal on the International Triathlon Union World Series circuit.
After six years of training and competition, she is on her way to Paris for the 2024 Paralympics. In preparation for the games, Taylor has been training four hours a day, seven days a week.
“A lot of what I have been able to accomplish has gone hand-in-hand with sport, which was so encouraged by the staff at HSC. From the very beginning, HSC staff encouraged me, and I felt supported in every way,” she says.
The Para triathlon event will be held on the morning of Sept. 2.
Through Taylor’s story, the HSC Foundation has witnessed the incredible ways adaptive sports equipment can aid in a patient’s rehabilitation. Since her stay on RR5, HSC Foundation donors purchased a sport wheelchair and hand bike for the RR5 Unit through the Giving Tuesday initiative.
“HSC Foundation donors should be proud of their support of this initiative because equipment like this can have such a positive impact on a patient’s recovery, both mentally and physically,” says Taylor.
HSC staff and the HSC Foundation are bursting with pride over Taylor’s accomplishments and will be cheering her on as she takes on the 2024 Paralympics this September!
To support the recovery of patients at HSC like Leanne Taylor, consider making a gift through our donation page, or by calling the HSC Foundation office at 204-515-5612 or 1-800-679-8493 (toll-free). To make a tribute gift in Leanne Taylor’s name, select the tribute gift box on our donation page.
By Jen Golletz
