LONDON —
All eyes were on No. 7 when Britain played Ukraine on Friday in its
first match of the Paralympic Games sitting volleyball tournament.
That
the number for Martine Wright (pictured), a former marketing manager who was
traveling on London's subway on July 7, 2005, when four suicide bombers
inspired by Osama bin Laden detonated explosives and killed 52
commuters. She lost both legs in the explosion.
But as Wright will tell you, that wasn't the end of the story.
"I
will always say I was one of the lucky ones that day," she told The
Associated Press earlier this year. "I survived. I don't know how I
survived. I've been living my life ever since."
She had stayed out
late the night before, celebrating the decision to award the Summer
Olympics to London. Having overslept, she didn't reach the car she
normally rode. Instead, she just jumped on the train as the doors
closed.
She later told an inquest into the terror attacks that she
recalled a flash of light and a sensation of being thrown from side to
side. She looked up, and saw one of the new sneakers she had just
bought. It was bloody, blown off her foot and skewered on a piece of
metal. An off-duty policewoman found her, wrapped her leg in a
tourniquet, held her hand, moistened her lips with water. She had lost
three-fourths of her blood.
Her body swelled to twice its normal
size because of her injuries. Her brother and sister saw her in the
hospital and told the police it wasn't her.
Wright will tell you
that she had help to get through the seven years since 7/7. It's about
Martine's team - what she refers to as "Team Me" - her support group of
family and friends. It started in the hospital, with her mother,
holding her daughter's face in her hands, telling her she could have
died or suffered brain damage. But that didn't happen. Martine was still
Martine.
Wright saw the impact of the bombs on so many others.
Families grieved. The city reeled in shock. She ultimately had to
decide: What would it be, Martine?
The answer began with small steps on prosthetic legs. She fell down. But she got back up, again and again.
''When
you go through something traumatic in your life ... you sometimes lose
who you are," she said.
"You're thrown in this completely new world.
When it happened to me, it didn't sort of happen overnight, suddenly, an
epiphany - Right. I can live my life now. It's a very gradual process."
She learned to fly, took up skiing. She got married, had a gorgeous little boy. But she needed more.
Always
athletic, she missed the competitiveness she once experienced at work -
that passion for success, the thrill of winning. She became attracted
to sitting volleyball because you don't use a wheelchair.
Like
volleyball, it has six players to a side and three touches allowed, but
the net is lower and players mostly sit on the floor. When Wright is on
the court, she isn't thinking about disability.
Plus, at the gym,
Wright found camaraderie. Her teammates, too, have their stories - like
Samantha Bowen, a veteran who was injured while serving in Iraq. These
teammates of yours, they understand.
"It's such a negative thing
that happened in my life," Wright said. "But I've gained something so
positive. It's a miracle in itself."
No one expects the British team to medal since they are relatively inexperienced.
On
Friday, Britain lost 25-9, 25-20, 25-14 to Ukraine, the European
champion, with Wright frequently rotating on and off the court before
her watching family.
Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/08/31/4220246/terror-attack-survivor-becomes.html#storylink=cpy
