Kelowna woman's recovery after serious scooter accident in Bali

Kelowna resident Brittany Roth was involved in a serious accident in Bali last November,  leading to emergency knee surgery and a torn left quadriceps tendon. 

Roth says the doctors in Indonesia gave her the thumbs up to start rehabbing once she returned home, but after three months of rehab, she realized something was still wrong.

“My leg still wasn’t working, I couldn’t go up the stairs - I could hardly walk,” says Roth. 

An ultrasound confirmed Roth’s concerns, her left quad muscle was completely detached from the bone and was off to the side of her leg. 

“It [was] three or four months without a quad at all... and then they reattached it.”

After double knee surgery and being immobilized for a total of 15 weeks, Roth started training about two weeks after getting out of her brace a month ago.

“I couldn’t even do a lunge at first, I could hardly do a squat. I was shaking like I am frail and weak,” explains Roth.

She said she can now squat up to 50 pounds, something she’s not sure she was able to do before the injury. 

Lindsay Boechler, Roth’s trainer and general manager of Anytime Fitness in Lake Country says the 20-year-old has come a long way in a really short time.

“I was personally so impressed with the steps Brittany took towards recovery, especially right now, it’s a little bit difficult to get back into this atmosphere … and getting back into the gym in general so I’m really impressed with Brit, she’s amazing."

Roth says her only competition is herself, and as a person who’s never really worked out, she’s happy with the progress. 

“If anyone knows me from high school, I failed P.E. twice, I was never an athletic person but I feel like once you go through something like this, like an injury, it kind of gives you the motivation to be better.”

Roth says you can take a difficult situation in one of two ways, a blessing or a burden. 

“I chose to see it as a blessing and I can push myself to get better even better than I was before I injured myself and that’s my goal - is to be better than I was before.”

Roth says after this traumatic experience she’s afraid to go on a scooter again. 

“I don’t think I could ever do it again. Even riding a bike for me is a big thing, I haven’t ridden a bike yet - I get really emotional when I think about riding a bike so I don’t know when maybe that’s a goal for me.”