BUFFALO, N.Y. — A short four months ago, Carrie Owens, 41, of Cheektowaga, was undergoing emergency lifesaving surgery after a horrific motorcycle accident. By pushing herself physically and mentally, doctors last week said she was well enough to return to the sidelines to coach Sacred Heart Academy's varsity basketball team.
Owens was a multi-sport athlete growing up in Pulaski, New York. She played basketball, soccer and ran track in high school. To Owens, sports were much more than just activities.
"I didn't have the best childhood and sports was my outlet," she told WGRZ's Melissa Holmes.
She was a star player and set basketball records at D'Youville College. After graduating, she explored other sports like volleyball, golf and semi-pro football.
Owens said she was finally in a good place. In 2008, she married her sweetheart, Reuben. She was teaching in the criminal justice program and East Community High School in Buffalo. She was volunteering with Girls on the Run and in basketball camps and clinics, and started a mentoring program called Boyz 2 Men. In 2020, she was entering her fourth season as the head coach for varsity basketball at Buffalo Academy of the Sacred Heart in Eggertsville.
Suddenly though, on November 8, 2020, her life would be forever changed.
Owens was out for a motorcycle ride to run errands less than a mile from her home when a pickup truck turned into her on Walden Avenue, striking her left leg and throwing her from her bike. She suffered catastrophic injuries to her lower left leg, a broken femur and other injuries. She lost a significant amount of blood and underwent emergency surgery. Doctors saved her life but could not save her leg. Owens was devastated to learn the news when she awoke from the surgery.
"I had a very, very hard time with it at first because of the lifestyle I lived," said Owens.
She spoke with therapists and other amputees for help, and tried to stay optimistic. She said she also received tremendous support from family, friends, the community and total strangers.
"I'm not paralyzed. I'm not dead. Am I missing my leg? Do I have injuries? Yes. But I can still get a prosthetic and get back to doing everything I used to do and more," she said.
Owens athleticism has helped her thrive thus far in physical therapy.
"Carrie's an athlete so she's knows how to push herself to the point of physical discomfort to move herself forward toward her goal of being a prosthetic user," said ECMC physical therapist Theresa Liffiton. "It takes an incredible amount of perseverance, tolerance to pain, and comfort in the unknown as she progresses through this."
Liffiton said she often has to slow Owens down because she pushes herself so hard.
"She still has to heal and we have to make sure that healing happens at an appropriate rate before we push her too far. Carrie is such an athlete that I'm often pulling the reins on her," said Liffiton, who is preparing Owens to learn to walk on a prosthetic leg in the coming weeks. "We anticipate that Carrie will be a fabulous teacher, a continued role model as a coach on the basketball court, a wonderful wife and we anticipate she'll be doing it two feet."
Owens uses buzzwords like "grit" and "tenacity" and "mental toughness" in sports and coaching, and now she finds herself using them in her own recovery.
"Those are qualities of an athlete that I exemplified when I played, and I preached when I coached, and it would just be hypocritical of me if I didn't do that now in my situation," she said. "I've got a no quit attitude. I can't quit. I can't stop. I can't feel sorry for myself. I can't be bitter or take pity on myself and I have a lot of people- especially young female athletes - that are looking up to me and I owe it to them as much as a I owe it to myself."
She returned to teaching remotely only 12 days after the accident and she was determined to get back to coaching. Because of Covid-19 and the possible spread of the virus, doctors had told her it wasn't safe to coach in person.
"I was not in a good place. I was just laying in bed all day in the dark and I didn't have my purpose anymore. I was losing who I was. So getting back into teaching right away was huge in my road to recovery. And then getting back into coaching, which is another passion of mine, has been a huge blessing in my recovery too because it gives another aspect of something that I love to do."
She did that by finding a way to coach virtually from her home. With one computer on a live stream, another on Zoom with a team manager on the court, and a cell phone on speakerphone on the sideline being passed among other coaches and the players, Coach Owens was back.
"It's complicated but I'm still calling plays, making substitutions, changing defenses, calling out offenses from my house in the computer. I don't feel like I left my team. It would've been a huge blow to my psyche to not be there and be involved with the girls."
On February 26, doctors finally gave Owens the go-ahead to coach in person. Sacred Heart beat Nardin, 50-44, but the score didn't really matter to Owens. That night she scored a physical and emotional victory.
Owens recently skied for the first time with the Lounsbury Adaptive Ski Program at Holiday Valley and she said it's breathing new life into her and making her think perhaps something good can come from this tragedy.
"I think it's really going to help me find my purpose beyond teaching and beyond coaching. It's just opening up a new world for me and I'm doing things that I never did or never dreamed I would do," she said.
Owens hopes to try out other adaptive sports and become an advocate for the program.
"I really now want to be a huge advocate for adaptive sports and through my influence in the community and my influence in the coaching world, bring awareness to it," she said. "That's just more motivation for me to keep pushing forward and not look back and make something great out of this situation."
As one can imagine, Owens medical bills are steep, many of which are not covered by insurance. A Go Fund Me page has been established to raise funds for her Owens during her recovery. Click here for the Go Fund Me page. The Community Shirt Project is also selling shirts in her honor. Click here for a link.