Kristen Cameron eyes Paralympic future

P.E.I.'s Kristen Cameron admits she lost her athletic desire after being paralyzed by a drunk driver four years ago. Now, that desire is back with an eye to representing Canada in the Paralympic sport of rugby.

Cameron was a highly touted minor hockey player growing up on the Island. She was coaching at Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pennsylvania when she was struck by a drunk driver while riding her bicycle.  The collision left her with a broken back and paralyzed from the chest down.

I think I have come further in the last year than I have in the last four years combined.- Kristen Cameron

"I think I have come further in the last year than I have in the last four years combined. I'm starting to feel better about things and starting to see some results." 

Cameron says with hard work and rehabilitation she is slowly gaining more independence, able to do more on her own and finding her passion for sport, in fact two sports, wheelchair racing and rugby.

"I guess I didn't realize what learning a whole new sport from the ground up entails. I look at it a lot like hockey, like first you have to learn to skate, well in wheelchair rugby you have to learn to push the chair, then the plays that go with and the playbook."

Cameron has been playing for the last year and is gaining attention of people involved in the sport 

"I still don't know all the rules to be honest," Cameron says with a laugh.

That's not stopped some from saying she is a player that could make it to the national team for Rio or Tokyo. Cameron says she just wants to see how far she can get in the next year.  

"Sport can do incredible things for people and I think I'm an example of that."