FINDING PEACE, BACK ON THE ICE
Kingston teen has lived through many tragedies, but she also knows life can be filled with triumphs
To sit across from Justyne Bennett inside a downtown Kingston coffee shop and listen to her recount a tragic life story that few could even fathom, one can't help but walk away inspired.
The 19-year-old St. Lawrence College student, who this week has been in Minot, N.D., to play for the Canadian women's para ice hockey team in a tournament against the United States club, has had to overcome tremendous pain and loss in her short time in this life.
“I was raised here,” Bennett said, noting that she and her two brothers, one of whom is her twin, spent most of their lives in the Limestone City.
Their parents split when they were young, Bennett said, her father spending a lot of time away from home as a member of Canada's military.
“My dad was in the Army, so he wasn't around, especially when we were really young,” Bennett said. “He was always overseas, so we didn't get to see him too much.”
Bennett said she recalls a good life growing up, and a close relationship with her brothers, now 19 and 21.
“We always got along,” the Frontenac Secondary School graduate said.
As a youth, and through high school, Bennett played different sports, but gravitated to hockey.
“I was always a goalie,” she said with a smile.
By the time she reached high school, where she played a few different sports, including soccer, she said she knew what her calling was.
“Hockey was always my dream sport, really.”
Her older brother also played goalie in hockey, while her twin brother was more into solo sports.
“My twin was mainly into individual sports, like archery or swimming, but it was mainly swimming,” she said.
By all accounts, the siblings were living a very common childhood growing up.
But things changed dramatically, Bennett recounted, when she was 14.
“My mom was diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer; it had spread all over her body,” she recalled.
Her father, who was estranged from the children's mother, stepped up at the time to help more with their children so his ex-wife could focus on her health.
“My dad kind of stepped in more as a father,” Bennett said. “But, just a few months after my mom was diagnosed, my dad had a heart attack and he passed away.”
Bennett said her father died while working out, leaving the family reeling and caring for their mother, who was gravely ill.
The siblings, by all accounts still just children, stepped up to care for their mom, who was fighting “a very, very invasive cancer,” Bennett said. “Me and my brothers were there for her because she started getting a lot worse.”
Bennett said her aunt and grandmother also took on larger roles in the kids' lives, helping care for their mother and with their dayto-day lives.
“My aunt and my grandma were there, and they helped take us places, especially when my mom couldn't,” she said.
As the kids got older, they also stepped up more during their mother's battle, Bennett said.
“My (older) brother was already working at the time — we started helping out with the bills and cleaning the house more because my mom wasn't able to do that because she was always so tired from chemo (treatments),” Bennett said.
Doctors eventually discovered their mom's cancer had spread to her brain, Bennett said, after she suffered a seizure while standing and had difficulties with her speech. At that point, their mom underwent radiation treatment, to which she responded well.
“She started getting better for a year,” Bennett recalled.
Then, the unimaginable happened.
On Oct. 20, 2021, while riding her motorcycle down Front Road on her lunch, a car made a left turn, pulling out in front of Bennett's bike at the last second. Bennett crashed into the car on her bike and was thrown over the car and landed some 20 feet away.
“I broke my spine right at my T4,” she said. “I remember the whole entire crash.”
A 43-year-old female with a suspended licence who was driving the vehicle that cut off Bennett was charged with Traffic Act and other offences at the time.
“She's just kind of out in the world right now,” Bennett said of the woman who altered the course of her life forever.
Reflecting back, Bennett said she can remember the entire crash, but doesn't recall being scared.
She said she remembers lying in the street after the crash, knowing she was paralyzed.
“It really took a toll on me,” she said. “I didn't think I was dying. I just knew right there (that I'd never walk again).”
She told the emergency responders who tended to her at the scene that she couldn't move her legs and that she was paralyzed. Still, she said, they told her to remain calm and let the doctors at the hospital determine the extent of her injuries.
But Bennett, who was riding a 250 cc Kawasaki Ninja that day, said she knew while lying in the street her life was forever changed.
“You know your own body,” she said. “When I really felt the pain was when they started to put the backboard under me. It just felt like my whole entire spine was ripping apart. I was in and out of consciousness once they put me in the ambulance.”
Bennett's family didn't learn of the incident until nearly an hour after it happened, she said.
“(First responders) were asking for my emergency contacts, but I couldn't remember (my mom's) number off the top of my head,” said Bennett, who also had a concussion, collapsed lung and whiplash from the crash.
Ultimately, she said, her twin brother put together the pieces when students at the school were saying someone had been in a motorcycle crash. With his sister missing from her afternoon class, he began worrying.
“That's when I believe my brother contacted my mom,” she said, adding that she got to see her mom at the hospital right before doctors took her into the operating room to undergo surgery.
Her mother was the only person allowed to see her due to stringent COVID -19 regulations at the time.
Doctors eventually delivered the grim news that Bennett said she already knew.
“The doctor came in and (asked), `Do you want the good news or bad news?' I was like, `Give me the bad news first,' ” Bennett recalled.
“The bad news is I'm not going to tell you you're never going to walk again, but you're most likely not going to walk again because of the injury you sustained. Your spine was broken,” Bennett recalled being told.
The good news was her nerves weren't entirely severed, leaving her with some senses.
“If something is hot on my leg, I have spasms, or a reaction to it,” she said. “(If I suffer an injury), I still have a reaction, but I can't actually physically feel it. I don't have any motor function whatsoever.”
While that news wasn't great, Bennett said it gave her some hope.
Following her crash, Bennett turned her focus to caring for her mother and learning how to live her life in a wheelchair. In that time, she met a gentleman named Dave Baldwin, who also used a chair. Baldwin quickly became a mentor and friend, helping Bennett learn and adapt to her life in a chair.
As Bennett began to adjust to her new life, her mom's health took a turn for the worse.
“She kind of went really, really downhill in a matter of months,” Bennett said.
Doctors remained optimistic that Bennett's mother could live another couple of years with the disease, however, her mother died in 2023. But not before living long enough to see her three kids graduate high school.
“She fought the cancer for five years,” Bennett said.
“She always said she wanted to at least watch us all graduate high school, to see us grow up. And she did. She fought all the way to see me and my twin also graduate high school.”
Following her mother's death, Baldwin took on more of a father figure role in her life, Bennett said.
“Dave became a really good mentor to me, more of a second father to me. I felt like I haven't had a parental figure in such a long time, especially a father figure,” she said.
Baldwin, along with doctors, nurses, Bennett's school friends, teachers and family really helped the teenager overcome some difficult challenges following her crash.
“At first, it was really hard,” she admitted. “Honestly, (I told) people, `Literally, just end my life now.' I didn't really know what it was like to be in a chair.”
She said she had depressing thoughts non-stop.
“Thoughts like, `Well, I'm never going to be able to ride a motorcycle, never going to be able to walk, to do things I love like playing hockey, going for a hike.' I loved being in the woods.”
Having already been forced to overcome so much adversity in her short life, Bennett leaned into those supporting her.
“My family, all the nurses and friends around me, they just supported me in getting out there and into the community of people with spinal cord injuries, and they helped me a lot,” she said.
“I'm grateful to be alive because some people don't get the chance, and there are people who are worse off than me.
“I can do so much more than other people, so I can't take this for granted. Yeah, I can't ever walk or do certain things again, but I'm glad for what I still have.”
Tragedy struck again last year, Bennett said, when her dear friend Baldwin died in his sleep from a heart attack.
“That really took a toll on me,” she said, fighting back tears. “He taught me so much in a chair, how to live in a chair and how to adapt to it.”
But Baldwin did not die without imparting many gifts on his young friend, the last of which was introducing Bennett to sledge hockey.
“I started playing sledge hockey six months after my injury,” Bennett said, adding that Baldwin had, at the urging of nurses who worked with Bennett, purchased her a sled to give it a try.
“I started playing,” Bennett said, adding that it took her a little while to make the adjustments from playing standup hockey, which she excelled at, to sledge hockey.
“It's the same sport but completely different at the same time. Playing sledge hockey, I have to use my arms all the time. From playing standup hockey, where I used my legs to move around, now it's just a lot harder in a sense, not just with moving, but also to be ready. I've come a long way in such a short amount of time.”
"It really took a toll on me. I didn't think I was dying. I just knew right there (that I'd never walk again).
Bennett began playing sledge hockey at Cataraqui Community Centre with the Kingston Knights, weekly at first. From there, Baldwin convinced her to enter tournaments, playing for teams in need of a goalie.
Quickly, Bennett became an excellent player. This year, she joined the Markham Islanders, which sees her travelling back and forth on weekends to chase her dreams.
Baldwin's final gift to Bennett was an introduction to the national sledge hockey team that he made while she was playing for a U.s.-based team at a tournament in Ottawa that also featured the national club.
“Dave kind of went up to them and told them, `Hey, you ought to come check out this girl,' ” she recalled.
“I was playing for an American team, so at first they thought I was American, but Dave told them, `Oh, no, she's Canadian.' ”
When Baldwin explained that Bennett previously played standup hockey before her crash, their eyes lit up, Bennett recalled him saying.
“They approached me after the tournament,” Bennett said.
The club then invited her to some goalie camps and tryouts, before naming her to its 2024 roster. This week, the club is in North Dakota to face the U.S. sledge hockey team in the threegame Minot Series.
Looking back, Bennett said she knows she could well have taken the route of feeling sorry for herself, or her situation, and landed down a dark path. But instead, she chooses life, the one she's been dealt.
“For me, what's best is kind of being out in the world, always doing something because I don't like sitting at home and thinking about stuff, that kind of gets me really in a bad place,” she said.
“I like being busy and being around other people. That brings up my spirits. Yeah, I might have some really bad days and whatnot, but I'm just always going to have those no matter what in life. Yeah, I can have a bad day, but I'm going to have so many more good days. There could be another tragic incident in my life later on, but I'm just going to literally live it to my fullest.
“With all the people passing away and all the stuff that happened to me, I never know whether it's going to be my last day or not, so I just kind of keep doing the things I love, trying new things, kind of getting out.”
That means riding motorcycles again, too, a Ryker.
“Yeah, it's not the same as riding a motorcycle, but it's close enough,” Bennett said. “This summer, I'm going to go out and go on these little 50 cc crotch rockets and go on a track and race around. People are willing to help me get in it and everything. Yeah, I might fall down a couple of times, but I'll always get back up.”
That also means learning to fly a plane.
“I had an opportunity to learn how to fly planes, and I got out there and I started doing that, because they had an adaptive system for controls and everything.”
And it means chasing the dream of playing for Canada's paralympic sledge hockey team.
“I've just got to keep working at it and get more ice time and really prove to them that I want this a lot,” Bennett said.
Asked what her parents might think about all of her success and her determination, Bennett knows they'd be proud.
“I think they'd be really proud,” she said. “I don't know what they would say. They would just honestly just be really proud of me and how far I've come to do all of this.”
And they wouldn't be alone in that pride.
“I'm pretty proud of myself,” she added with a smile as she sipped on her drink.
Bennett has also come to terms with the fact she'll most likely never walk again, despite medical advancements that could one day change that outlook.
“If I was going to walk again, it would have to be through technology,” she said. “I've been looking into the stem-cell implants and I'd be a good candidate because I'm so young and my nerve system wasn't completely severed.”
But those who live with similar injuries to Bennett's who have undergone stem-cell implants have only seen results such as better movement or better function of their bladders or bowels, she said.
“With stem-cell implants, there's no guarantee you're going to be able to move anything.”
The teen said at this point in her life, she's at peace with where her life is.
“I've kind of come to terms with my injury. I don't know if I could go back to being able to walk again, because I've built such a life around being paralyzed and so many people who have helped me on my journey.”
Yeah, I can have a bad day, but I'm going to have so many more good days . ... I'm just going to literally live it to my fullest.