A boating accident in the Bahamas turned what was supposed to be a graduation celebration into sorrow, but a young Tennessee woman’s courage and conviction is leading her to a remarkable recovery from a life-changing injury.
Hannah Smith, a recent graduate from Miles College in Alabama, survived the unthinkable back on May 12. She shared her ordeal and provided an update on her rehabilitation to 7News on Thursday.
Faith and family keep the 22-year-old going. She is beating all odds after a boating accident nearly took her life.
Smith has transmuted her pain into art. She read aloud from a poem she wrote during one of her more difficult moments.
“I call it ‘The Unfair Trade.’ I said, ‘A normal day is a normal day until it isn’t normal at all,’” she said. “‘A piece of me is missing, and I’d trade the world for it. Dodging life’s curveballs, but this time, I’m hit, so instead I heal and try to fight my feelings of strife. But how can anybody ever understand me? I traded my legs for my life.’”
The poem talks about losing a part of her.
“I want my legs back, but in that situation, I would have lost my life,” she said.
And Smith is grateful for her life.
“I could have just lost so much more. My family could be grieving right now, instead of like helping me rehabilitate,” she said.
Smith was in the Bahamas to celebrate her graduation.
“When we stopped at a port in the Bahamas, I went on an excursion and, unfortunately, the boat propellers kind of dismembered my legs,” she said. “I had to get them amputated in the hospital — [my left] one was done in the Bahamas — and then I was airlifted to Miami.”
Smith’s life changed after that. Following several surgeries at different hospitals, she’s doing three hours of physical therapy a day at Encompass Health Rehabilitation Hospital in Cutler Bay.
“Getting in the wheelchair was the first big win, but being back in the gym, it just gave me a lot of energy,” she said.
Smith is now getting stronger by the day.
“A lot of my wounds are almost closed, so it’s kind of like slowly getting back to a new normal life,” she said.
Dr. Evan Grant, the medical director at Encompass Health, agrees. He marveled at the progress his patient has made.
“I think she has a great prognosis. She’s already had a tremendous recovery,” he said. “She’s got that support system, but she’s also got a great attitude herself.”
“Usually whatever I set my mind to, I feel like I can achieve it,” said Smith.
Smith is determined to not let the accident define her, because her dreams aren’t going anywhere.
“I did graphic design through my communications degree in college,” she said.
She is also a talented tattoo artist.
“The only thing that hasn’t changed is, I still want to do tattoos. Even in the hospital, I want them to go get my tattoo machine so I can tattoo myself,” she said.
In her poem, Smith wrote that she is here for a reason.
“‘I’m here for a reason, right? They say your pain only lasts for a season, right?’” she said as she read from the poem.
And she has some new goals, too.
“Working with prosthetics, people that are amputees — children, women, men — and kind of like, I don’t know, giving them a community,” she said.
Smith’s positive outlook on all this is truly remarkable. She expects to be fitted for prosthetics in the near future.
If you would like to help Smith out on her recovery journey, her family has created a GoFundMe page.