The Power to Overcome
rhonda backman-loo was an accomplished marathon and ultrarunner. and then she was trapped underneath the wheel of a tanker truck.
Rhonda Backman-Loo was an accomplished marathon and ultrarunner. She had had a good year so far: she won the Blackfoot Ultra 50-miler near Edmonton and came third in the women’s division at the Millarville Half-Marathon. She was looking forward to her upcoming trip to Europe with her husband, where she planned to run the 100-kilometre Olympus Mythical Trail in Greece. And then she was trapped underneath the wheel of a tanker truck.
On the evening of June 15, 2015, Rhonda Backman-Loo ate a dinner of ribs and salad with her husband and two sons at their house in Lake Newell Resort, Alta. Then she slipped on her running shoes and bike helmet. An emergency-room nurse, she was scheduled to work at 11 p.m. that night, but knew she had time for a 40-kilometre bike ride down the f lat, prairie highway. Backman-Loo, an experienced road and ultrarunner, had had a good year so far: she won the Blackfoot Ultra 50-miler near Edmonton and came third in the women’s division at the Millarville Half-Marathon. She was looking forward to her upcoming trip to Europe with her husband, where she planned to run the 100-kilometre Olympus Mythical Trail in Greece. “I felt strong and was well-trained and conditioned,” she says. That evening was clear and sunny, with minimal wind. Backman-Loo rode along the bike path near her house, a paved trail that runs parallel to the highway, separated by a wide strip of grass. As she crossed a side road that intersected the path, a tanker truck turned right off the highway, cutting in front of her. Backman-Loo tried to wrench her bike in the opposite direction, but was sucked underneath the truck. She felt her head hit the pavement, her body tumbling around under the vehicle as it kept moving. ‘Holy shit,’ she thought, ‘ This is it. I’m going to die.’ She thought of her sons. Then she blacked out. When she came to, the truck had stopped. She was later told she’d been dragged for 40 feet.
She felt immense pressure on her left foot – it was stuck under one of the tires. Then she started to scream. Telling the story more than two years later, Backman-Loo takes a deep breath. “Every time I talk about it – the same feelings, the same emotions come up.”
She was taken to the local hospital, the one she worked at, in an ambulance. Her initial peppy optimism – “I’m gonna be OK. I’m gonna be OK” – gave way to feelings of sadness and disbelief. “I was very distraught,” she says. “I thought I was never going to run again. You could tell me I wouldn’t be able to cycle or swim or play golf or whatever – it’s just not the same. The things that happen in your brain are not the same.”
Within an hour, she was transferred to a trauma centre in Calgary, two hours away. Her left foot was in bad shape: her ankle bone was partially crushed, her fibula was fractured, and the gaping hole in her ankle
she had one lofty goal in mind: months before, she’d been accepted into the new york city marathon. “come hell or high water, i was running it,” she says. “whether i had to crawl or not.”
was so full of gravel from the road that she underwent three surgical debridement procedures to clean it out. A plastic surgeon removed skin from her left upper thigh – “they use a sort of industrial cheese slicer,” she says – and grafted it to her ankle. She spent three weeks in the hospital and weeks after wearing a boot. Miraculously, she suffered no head or spinal injuries, other than a concussion. “I was lucky,” she says. “I realize every day that I definitely could have died in that accident, and it ended up that I have a really ugly ankle.” After five weeks of recovery, Backman-Loo was able to walk again. Two months after the accident, she got the go-ahead from her doctors to run, slowly. She started with one kilometre, and it hurt. But she kept at it, slowly increasing her distance. She had one lofty goal in mind: months before, she’d been accepted into the New York City Marathon. “Come hell or high water, I was running it,” she says. “Whether I had to crawl or not.” Training was painful, both physically and mentally. Backman-Loo cried – a lot. “Returning to running was draining emotionally for a long time because you’re not where you used to be,” says. “I was very resentful. I was angry; I was thinking, ‘I’m never going to be what I used to be. I’m not going to be a contender in any of my races.’” Growing up in rural Nova Scotia, Backman-Loo ran at junior and high-school track events and always did well, often making the
“it was more high-fiving. i was wearing music for distraction, because it was still painful and i didn’t have full dorsal flexion. i broke all my own rules, and i had a blast. it was the best marathon ever.”
podium at regionals and provincials. Over the years, as she moved around the country for various jobs, she ran on and off. In Iqaluit, where she worked for two years as a correctional officer, she ran on a treadmill. On runs in High Level, Alta., horsef lies followed her in a cloud, so she typically ran indoors there, too. She liked going to the gym, spending two hours a day working out.
It wasn’t until the birth of her first son in 2009 that she really became a diehard runner. She’d nurse him in the morning, head out for a 13-kilometre run before her husband went to work, then later in the day, put the baby in the stroller and go out for another five kilometres. “It was time for us to spend together, instead of me going to the gym and tossing him in childcare,” she says.
Eventually, Backman-Loo decided to try a 21-kilometre loop in Whitecourt, Alta., where she was living at the time. It felt easy. After some encouragement from friends, she ran her first half-marathon, in February 2010, in 1:36. In June, she ran a marathon in 3:16 and a second in October in 3:04.
In 2012, she ran Boston. By then, she’d given birth to a second child. He was five months old at the time, and she tried pumping breast milk in a porta-potty on the race grounds. It was an impossible feat. “I ended up starting the race five hours after nursing my baby and I was already starting to feel so engorged,” she recalls. Afterwards, she wrote a letter to the organizers, urging them to
provide a place for new moms to nurse or pump.
Later that year, Backman-Loo ran her first ultra– the 100-kilometre Lost Soul Ultra in Lethbridge, Alta.– despite previously thinking the distance was “totally insane.”
“I didn’t know anything about ultras,” she says. “You wouldn’t believe it: I ran with a running belt with two little bottles. I’m sure the longstanding ultrarunners looked at me and thought, ‘What an idiot. What the hell does she think she’s doing?’” And yet, she came third overall and was the first woman to finish, breaking the women’s course record with a time of 14 hours. And she had to nurse her son twice during the race.
Backman-Loo qualified again for Boston in 2013. She finished about an hour before the bombs went off. “The looks on people’s faces – the fear – that’s something I’ll never forget,” she says. “It just gives me that lump in my throat.”
Fast forward to New York in the fall of 2015, after the accident. Backman-Loo’s approach to races had always been game-face serious. “We’re not high-fiving. I’m not listening to music. I have a focus and this is what I’m doing,” she says. But New York was different. “It was more high-fiving. I was wearing music for distraction, because it was still painful and I didn’t have full dorsal f lexion. I broke all my own rules, and I had a blast. It was the best marathon ever.”
She finished in 3:20, and was shocked she did so well. Since, she’s completed two half-Ironmans and run other races, including the Canadian Death Race in 2017. She was the first woman to cross the line. “I was over the moon when I finished because I didn’t think it was something that I’d ever be capable of doing after what I experienced with my injury.”
The collision changed her relationship with running. “It doesn’t define who I am,” she says. “But now I can spread the love of running.” She’s taught some learn-to-run clinics in Brooks, Alta., and is an ambassador for Fast Trax Run and Ski Shop in Edmonton.
Now, more than two years after she was struck by the tanker, Backman-Loo has bought a new bike and returned to cycling, though only on rural roads with little truck traffic. “I had atrocious thoughts of my body being ripped apart,” she says. “That’s part of my posttraumatic stress.”
She never let her sons see her upset about what happened, though to this day, every time they drive by the site of the accident, her youngest points it out, “Mama, that’s where you got hit by the truck.”
She says she’s always been a positive person, but this experience has made her strive to be even more upbeat: “I can’t live feeling sorry for myself. I need to show my children what a powerful person is, what a powerful woman is – that we overcome these things.”