Electric shock victim loses arm, faces 10th surgery
Woman suffered electrical shock, severe burns in Christmas Eve car accident
Sabryna Mongeon awoke from a medically induced coma and told her family that she is glad to be alive.
Mongeon, 18, regained consciousness Thursday after multiple operations to remove most of her left arm and leg as well as the lower parts of the right arm and leg. She’s awake and aware of the extent of the medical intervention that took place, her older sister Samantha Mongeon said Sunday.
“She knows what happened and she accepts it,” Samantha said. “When she realized that she will be here to celebrate her next birthday — it will be Jan. 24 — she was really happy.”
Sabryna was visiting her mother in Luskville when she crashed into a utility pole on the night of Christmas Eve, lost in the snow on the back roads of Pontiac. She was safe as long as she stayed in the car. She hadn’t seen the fallen electrical wires.
Afraid her car would burst into flames, she stepped outside and took a massive electrical charge through her hands and feet. She suffered extensive burns, and frostbite after spending several hours in sub-zero temperatures. The driver of the municipality’s snowplow, John Schuiteboer, saw the mangled pole at 6 a.m., called 911, and stayed with her until the ambulance came.
Mongeon’s family refer to Schuiteboer as Sabryna’s guardian angel, because without his help “she wouldn’t have made it,” Samantha said.
The ambulance took Sabryna to a hospital in Hull where she was put in a medical coma before being transferred to the burn unit at Montreal’s Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal. When doctors revived her to determine her wish to survive, she clearly told them that she didn’t suffer four hours in the snow only to give up then.
Sabryna now faces her 10th operation and multiple skin grafts as she had suffered third-degree burns in the electric shock. She’s in pain and feeling stressed about the next operation, Samantha said.
“But she’s positive, too. Her attitude is: It’s only when you’re close to death that you realize how precious life is,” Samantha said. “We don’t know where her strength comes from. But her attitude is helping us.”
Samantha said her sister is extremely grateful for all the messages of love and support, as well as for the donations on a crowdfunding site, which has raised more than $160,000.
To those who have criticized the family for its calls for funding, Samantha replied she’d rather have her sister “as before” over any money.
“She has so far to go and that fund will help care for her needs,” Samantha said of rehabilitation costs.
When she awoke Thursday, Sabryna requested a blanket used by four-month-old Lucas, her nephew and godson, “for the baby smell,” Samantha said. “She now has the baby’s blanket tucked around her.”