in the fifth event of seven events during the games I snapped my leg completely in half [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hi I'm Nancy Marine Corps veteran I am a college student right now studying physical education and social work and I'm a professional strong man [Music] it's my second year at the official strongman games and I suffered a catastrophic injury that probably would have broken another athlete had I not had the mindset I have been building for a very long time I was very weird athletically I had originally started dancing when I was in Middle School
thinking I would be this graceful beautiful girl across the stage and as I got older and I kept getting more muscular I realized my strength is too much for me to try and be this dainty person I was a runner up until I deployed and had nowhere to actually run on that base and then I started power lifting on that base in Bulgaria and when I came back from deployment maybe less than a year later I had done some power lifting needs and then I met my coach and pretty quickly fell in love with strongman
I met my current coach when I was still active duty in the Marine Corps and he invited me out to try some strongman events on weekend while I was still powerlifting I thought I would love it and I fell in love almost instantly I've never looked back I've also never switched coaches in that time and that was back in 2018. once you get that itch in a sport or your Niche or whatever your passion is you can't look away and once I met strong man that was it Charming was my baby I wouldn't be who
I am without strongman and you know a lot of people are like strongman shouldn't be your identity I'm fine with that strongman is my identity I claim that that is the most powerful part of my life and it has done so many amazing things for my life the next year in 2019 I signed up for my first national show thinking I'm just gonna go see what it's like I'm just gonna go play and I won I swept the floor without realizing I was sweeping the floor and again I don't say that to be cocky I
say that because at that time I had the strength I had the technique for the most part I was still kind of new but I didn't have the mental fortitude and focus to take me further than a national show so I was winning because I had strength and that was it but in strongman as you get to bigger shows as you get to world level stages International shows where you have people coming from literally anywhere in the world you cannot just leave it up to your strength and chance and hoping that your performance is the
same as last time you have to have every technique down to the core you have to be able to stand there and calm yourself down and say I'm capable I can do this I'm strong and I'm gonna do this because I've done it before this mindset isn't something that you can just achieve it's something you have to hone in on year after year event after event and I really started to work on it at the end of 2021 I took my second national title and I moved into my first official strongman games thinking I'm the
hottest thing out there and I was complacent I didn't have plan B's for when things went wrong I wasn't as laser focused as I needed to be and I took fourth place I was just a few points shy of a podium and then I took that and I started to really work on who I am as an athlete any serious athlete will understand that if you're not first it doesn't matter you train for first you train to be the best so then we move into the 2022 official strongman games where the catastrophic injury happened and
I am an athlete I had never seen before I was an athlete that my partner my coach my teammates could not believe were in they could not believe this person was in front of them everyone that competed with me that weekend was telling me that I was somebody they couldn't recognize I wasn't paying attention to external factors I was very adaptable there was a hurricane that was affecting every part of the event all weekend long I was laser focused on myself I wasn't paying attention to the points I didn't know I was in first until
maybe the third event I came off the first event upset that I didn't do better and my boyfriend was like you just won relax move on to the next event it's my second year at the official strongman games and I suffered the worst injury of my life an injury that would honestly deter most people from coming back to the platform [Music] I was in the fifth event of seven events carrying a yoke that was fashioned out of an old Volkswagen Bug across the competition floor when I stepped out too far and the rock of the
car plus the 620 pounds of it shot through my right leg and snapped my tibia and fibula faster than I could even understand what happened and when I say that it's because I didn't know what happened I went into shock so quickly that I fell to the ground I screamed still not understanding what happened I never felt it I heard it and if you've ever had your ears pierced or something puncture your body and you've heard the skin break that is what I heard in my brain I heard my entire I heard both bones snap
but I did not feel it and I'm lucky for that I know I'm lucky that I didn't feel it but it was one of those moments where someone doesn't have to tell you what happened for you to know it's wrong so I'm sitting at the bottom of the car I blacked out from standing up to sitting down all of a sudden there's like five or six people trying to get me out of this car and I'm looking down at my leg and I can't see anything wrong but I know I can't stand on it didn't
even try and I'm breaking down I'm crying and everyone thinks I'm in the worst pain in my life and I'm not yet I'm in the worst emotional pain in my life I had never felt something so crushing in my entire life and I don't say any of these things to be cocky please don't misunderstand me when I say these things a true champion a true season athlete will understand when you are sitting in first place the way I was I was in a 10-point lead I was three feet from the Finish Line when I snapped
my leg I didn't finish that event and I stayed in first place so to know that I wasn't going on to events six and seven was the most crushing thing I've ever felt in my life once I realized my leg was broken they put me on the stretcher they're about to take me out and I'm asking can I stay can I stay like I want to see my fellow 73 kilogram women go and they're like no you aren't showing pain we are so concerned about you we need to get you to the hospital right now
they're checking me to see if I'm having a heart attack and the whole time I'm like I'm giggling you know the fentanyl the morphine all that stuff's starting to kick in that they're giving me on site and I'm just like I don't understand why I can't at least see this through if I'm not getting my world title why can't I see this through in that moment I went from completely distraught knowing I lost my world title because it was mine I was in a 10-point lead and I knew if I follow through if I finish
the circus dumbbell event if I do the stone event I will take this world title this will be my first world title I have put everything in my life on hold for this this is what I came here for and as soon as that happened I knew it was over so I spend the entire ambulance ride the first three hours I'm sending the ER completely unaware of Pain still don't actually know if my leg's broken fell for the false hope that maybe I had twisted something because a doctor said it and I latched on to
it they come and show me my x-ray finally and about three hours after that they conscious sedate me and set my leg because they had to put it back together in order for the surgeon to do their work the next day I wake up for the from the Conscious Sedation in the most pain I've ever felt in my life I couldn't comprehend how I could go from not feeling anything but emotionally distraught to now feeling like my leg had been completely sawed off coming home from the hospital it wasn't I'm done with strong man it
wasn't what's next for me it was instantly how quickly can we walk how quickly can we be back at the games how quickly can we do this I remember sitting in the hospital telling my partner okay I probably won't compete in January I probably won't compete in April and he's like you're not competing at the beginning of next year and once I got home and my boyfriend had to go back to work he had built this bedroom downstairs for me in our living room taking care of me doted on me but he eventually had to
go back to work it was the days where I would sit in the bed by myself before I could drive before I could walk and just getting to the kitchen to warm something up would break me down because it hurt it hurt to get up it hurt to let the blood flow and that's when the depressive thoughts would creep in that's when the I'll never be myself this will always hurt crept in and it's easy to see how someone could be very deterred in that moment very depressed or decide to completely hang up a sport
like that having this insanely strong mindset that I have been building since the end of 2021 going into this injury pulled me through the injury if I had given in to the negative thoughts and the awful things creeping in and the doctors just physical therapists Ortho doctors X-ray techs nurses every single person telling me you'll never run again you'll never squat again you'll never do this you don't need to do this all of those things I had to throw away and say it's fine we don't agree but I'm coming through this and I did come
through this and I wouldn't have come through this had I not stuck to my mindset and continuing to better my mindset anytime I went to the gym when I first had my boot when I could barely walk when I had crutches and I want to cry and I'm telling myself is this worth it the more motivational Nancy on my shoulder is saying yeah because you don't want to get to the end of your life and look back and be like you really let that pull you out of the sport you love most in the world
the feeling I have knowing that I have physical Independence again knowing that I'm in charge of my life I can take care of myself and not only athletic situations but emergency situations because I've grown stronger from this injury is more powerful than I can explain to anyone if you've had an injury and you come back from it you know what it's like but to anyone who's doubting themselves and wanting to give up I urge you not to because the mental power and the power that it gives you for the rest of your life is just
unpoppable I would say to be in the top one percent of your Niche whether it be a sport or a skill quite literally need to be willing to die for it and when I say that you have to be willing to give it your all you have to be willing to give up the social things that don't serve you the drinking the partying the staying up late you have to be willing to commit to just simple hydration simple nutrition meeting your gym expectations if you miss one session once every single week that's 52 sessions in
a year you have to be willing to put other things on hold and follow this through until the end if you say you're going to do something like this you can't half-ass it being able to stand there now ing I've done things before if I get nervous about something because I think I'm gonna get hurt there's a rod in my leg I'm not going to hurt my leg again the same way I did before however I still need to be able to stand there and tell myself I'm strong I'm capable I've done this before we'll
do it again and anyone can do that you just have to find the mindset within yourself no one can teach you a powerful mindset it's something you have to build through your own trials and tribulations and if I choose to compete this year at OSG my mindset better be on point or I will mentally crumble before I physically crumble maybe when the negativity Creeps in you need to find a resource that tells you about someone who's experienced something similar and while you can't compare yourself exactly to them you can look at some of the tools
they might use because all of these things the self-talk the practice how you compete the laser focus all of those things are tools that you have to learn how to achieve on your own anyway so regardless of a community or not you're the only one on the platform you're the only one out there competing I can't hear a single person when I'm out there doing an event aside from two people and that's my partner and my coach and that's because I've learned to only hone into those voices but it's just you out there the end
of the day you have to be confident yourself you have to be able to carry yourself because it's just you so screw the negativity why are you doing it why are you here I would also say find find a community a community that drives you because even on the days when motivation is fleeting or you feel like your drive is lost or your focus is lost having a small community or a big Community or people you can rely on to hold you accountable and to bring you back up that's very powerful I've met my closest
friends my partner I've I wouldn't be who I am without strongman yes I had an insanely awful injury at the end of last year but I'm still qualified for the official strongman games at the end of 2023. I have the chance to go back and take my world title just like anyone else who might be watching this video you will always have some kind of chance to go back and reclaim what you might have lost whether it be to just poor training not enough strength maybe you messed up your Technique or you had an accident
like I did or it's just out of your control I believe that if you work hard enough coming back is even better it's a more powerful story and it's a more powerful meaning to you because winning doesn't really mean anything if you didn't have to fight like how to get get there I'm somebody that's going to come back from this injury better I'm not looking to be my old self I'm looking to come back as a new Nancy robot leg and all don't care I'm here for it are you gonna compete I'm not sure yet
you'll have to you'll have to follow me to see follow my journey to see [Music] [Applause] [Music]
