Paralympian tears up testifying about accident

Biletski suing U of Regina for negligence

REGINA • A Paralympian says doing simple things like recovering from a scratch and making a bed have become immensely more difficult since an accident left her a quadriplegic.

Miranda Biletski is suing the University of Regina for negligence.

Biletski dove into a pool from competition starting blocks at the university during a swim club practice in June 2005. The then-16-yearold hit the bottom and fractured her cervical vertebrae, leaving her a quadriplegic.

The Paralympic wheelchair rugby player testified before a jury Tuesday that she got a scratch on her tail bone while transferring out of her wheelchair in July 2015.

A couple of days later, the scratch was a festering wound with black skin. The wound grew to “probably about the size of a hockey puck” and the tip of her tail bone could be seen, she said. It’s still healing, she added.

Biletski teared up on the stand as she talked about taking classes at Camosun College in Victoria. The college is in the same building as the Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence, where she trained. Biletski said she thought it would be a good combination of training and attending class.

But she ended up having to leave the school on compassionate medical grounds.

“The straw that really broke the camel’s back with that one was one of my professors made me provide a note saying I missed class to have a bowel movement,” she tearfully testified.

Court has heard that Biletski has to put in her own catheter to go to the bathroom several times a day and that a bowel movement now takes her a couple of hours.

Biletski — the first woman on Canada’s wheelchair rugby team — can move her arms and shoulders, but has limited use of her hands.

She played with the largely male Team Canada rugby squad at world championships Regina-born Paralympian Miranda Biletski can move her arms and shoulders but has limited use of her hands. in 2010 and 2014, and at the 2016 Rio Olympics, where the team placed fourth.

“I’m never going to sit here and say I can’t do something. It’s not in my personality,” she said Tuesday. “But at the same time, sure I can say I can make my bed, but it also takes me 45 minutes to put a fitted sheet on.”

The university is denying negligence and blames the accident on Biletski and the swim club.

In court documents, it says that third parties were responsible for ensuring the contracted pool facilities were safe for club members and for determining whether the water was deep enough for safe entry from the diving blocks.

In testimony on Monday, Biletski said she heard paramedics initially thought her injury was a stinger — a term used when a player hits their head and it feels like their limbs go to sleep, though the feeling eventually returns.

“I didn’t think it was that and I actually gave my mom a list of people in the ambulance that I wanted her to call to say that I was going to the hospital,” she said.

Her lawyer, Alan McIntyre, then asked: “So you didn’t think even then (that) it was temporary?” “No,” said Biletski. Doctors said trying to repair her spinal cord would be “like trying to squeeze all the toothpaste out of a tube of toothpaste and then getting it back in without actually damaging the toothpaste.”

Court was told how Biletski had to learn to sit upright without passing out and to feed herself again.

“When I first started learning to do things, regular forks and knives and spoons were too heavy at the time — just with my lack of finger dexterity, I would drop them. So Mom actually brought me a Dairy Queen blizzard and the plastic spoon was the first thing I learned to eat with,” she said. “It was wonderful.” Use of her hands is very limited. “When it’s not tired, sometimes I can wiggle one finger a little bit,” she said of her right hand on Monday.

According to the Canadian Wheelchair Sports Association website, Biletski swam and played water polo competitively before her injury.

The case is expected to last three weeks.