Ice-skating champ who missed death by just a millimetre
A YOUNG Scots skater has defied doctors by qualifying for the British championships – after she came a millimetre from death when she broke her neck in a car crash.
Emily Dale, 15, was on her way to a training camp when she suffered a ‘hangman’s fracture’ – so called because it involves the C2 vertebra broken in executions.
She had to wear a metal ‘halo’ screwed into her skull for three months and a collar to support her neck for a further eight months.
Doctors believe her 15-hour-a-week training regime helped save her life – but warned that she might never skate again, following the accident in October 2016.
Her mother Gill Dale, 56, of Kingston, Moray, said: ‘That was one of the only times I saw her upset. It was a really serious fracture. Seeing the extent of the injuries was heartbreaking.
‘That was traumatic, just to see your child in that situation. She’s been very, very lucky.’
This summer, in her first competition since the accident, Miss Dale came second and earned enough points to secure a place at the British Figure Skating Championships in Sheffield in November.
She said: ‘It was really exciting. I wasn’t even aiming for it in particular, I was just getting back into it. But it was amazing when I qualified.’
Miss Dale received a standing ovation from fellow skaters, while her father Stuart, 65, said it was ‘like a script from a movie’.
But she and her parents know it could have been a very different outcome had she not been training for 15 to 20 hours a week at the time of the accident.
Mr Dale said: ‘The doctors said her level of fitness and core strength at the time of the accident probably saved her life. It could have been a lot worse – another millimetre or two and it would have been a complete break.
‘Yet she smiled through it all. She just got on with it – that’s Emily all over.’
After her accident, her injuries were so severe that she faced a long road to recovery; she had to stay off the ice for 12 months.
But Miss Dale, who was only 13 at the time of the crash on the A9 near Pitlochry, Perthshire, has never let her injuries stand in her way of being an active teenager.
Her father said: ‘As soon as she had the halo removed, she did an off-ice jump and nearly gave us a heart attack.’
When she had the collar removed, the first thing Miss Dale did was go indoor rock climbing. But she was always keen to get back on the ice.
Her mother said: ‘There were 26 specialists assigned to her case and they made the decision whether or not she should skate again. Some said she shouldn’t, some said she would be fine.
‘We were lucky it was her neurosurgeon in Aberdeen who had the casting vote. But she had to stay away from skating for 12 months – and that was hard for her.’
Mrs Dale added: ‘Looking at the extent of the injuries on the X-rays and CT scans, she’s very, very lucky.
‘The worst part was seeing the images on the screen.
‘When she had the halo fitted, it broke my heart. I would have swapped places with her in an instant.
‘But I certainly wouldn’t have dealt with it as well as Emily did. She’s an inspiration.’
Miss Dale now completes a weekly round-trip of more than 100 miles from her home in Moray to Dundee to train with some of the country’s top coaches – in addition to her training sessions at her local rink in Elgin.
The brave teenager, who has been ice-skating since she was eight, said: ‘It would be awesome to qualify for the world championships and the Olympics – but at the moment I’m just focusing on the British championships.
‘Skating is really good fun. I’d be really lost without it.’
‘It was really serious. She’s been very lucky’