Woman loses all four limbs after Yule car crash

Electric shock, cold contribute to injuries

MONTREAL • A young Quebec woman has had her arms and legs amputated after she spent more than three hours outside in freezing temperatures following an electric jolt that raced through her body.

Samantha Mongeon says her younger sister Sabryna, 18, was driving a car early on Christmas morning when she lost control of the vehicle and collided with a hydroelectric pole in western Quebec.

“The pole did not fall down but wires came down and fell on her vehicle,” Mongeon told The Canadian Press on Wednesday. “She was afraid it would catch fire so she left the vehicle (and) it was at that moment that she received an electrical charge of 14,500 volts.”

Mongeon said the jolt entered through her sister’s hands, coursed through her body and exited through her feet, adding “she immediately lost her left foot.”

Sabryna passed out, and spent about three hours outside her car, at times struggling to get back into the vehicle, in temperatures that were as low as -12.5C.

“She tried with all her heart to come back to her car,” Mongeon said, “because it was very cold outside.” During her time outside the car, Sabryna’s hands, arms and legs became dangerously frozen, adding to the burns from the electrocution.

A “Good Samaritan saw the vehicle, called 911 and stayed with her and warmed her in his arms” until help arrived, Mongeon said.

Police have the man’s name, but he didn’t want it published.

Sabryna was taken to Hôpital de Hull, where she was put into an induced coma to stabilize her, before being transferred to the burn unit at the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal. When she arrived at the Montreal facility, however, doctors brought Sabryna out of the coma to ask whether she wanted to be treated — “to be alive,” said her sister.

“And she said clearly: ‘Yes I want to live. I don’t want to die. I’m OK with the operation.’”

Sabryna’s decision to go forward prompted doctors to embark on a series of amputations on all four of her limbs. She was once more put into an induced coma to escape the pain. She’ll stay unconscious for at least another week, according to her sister, while the family waits for the results of more operations and information from doctors.

“My mother is there, all day, all night,” Mongeon said. Since their parents are selfemployed, she has started a crowdfunding campaign on