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Beating the Odds
| Date: |
18 February 2002 12:00 |
| Producer: |
Diana Lucas
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| Show: | Carte Blanche |
It's 5.30am on Tuesday morning at the Newlands Pool in Cape Town, and while most sane people are still in bed, this squad of the country's best swimmers are well into their day. One of them is Olympic hopeful, 18-year-old Natalie du Toit.
`Natalie was one of my most talented girls. We had all the hope that Natalie could make Olympics, Natalie could be one of the best swimmers in the world,` says Natalie's swimming coach Karoly van Torus.
But in February last year Karoly might have thought his swimmer's career had been shattered, when a car knocked her of her scooter.
At 7.20am, it's peak rush-hour traffic. Natalie had just finished swimming training and she was on her way to school when a car collided with her. In a split second everything changed for her.
`I don't remember being hit but I remember landing in the road. I landed in a sitting position with my legs out straight ... (the car) just went straight through my leg. My leg actually burst from impact,` Natalie says.
Karoly had been quickly summoned to the scene of the accident.
`I saw the leg was in such a shape, it was very difficult to accept...` he says.
'Everyone was so frantic and I was just trying to calm them down ... basically I was in a lot of pain sitting there ... I actually said to them that they must please not let my mom come near me because I knew she'd cry and I didn't really want that too happen,' Natalie says.
'They actually wouldn't let me near her - all I saw was the top half of her. Natalie was so extremely calm, that all I could do. The paramedics were working around her, so there wasn't much I could do at that stage anyway,' says Deidre, Natalie's mother.
Deidre and her husband Dawid du Toit had watched their daughter propel herself into the forefront of swimming in this country - despite an inauspicious start.
'Natalie hated the water when she was young. She only took to swimming at about five and three quarters, and she just learnt to swim from watching her brother train, and then one day she decided 'I can do that',' explains Deidre.
And she never looked back. A child swimming sensation, Natalie won medal after medal, breaking records and taking golds. Now at 17 years old, at the peak of her swimming career, a group of surgeons were trying to save her left leg - to no avail. Six days after the accident they had to amputate.
'I was lying in bed and I heard this voice saying 'It's going to be ok' and rubbing my forehead. I didn't know what it was, so I sort of woke up and asked the sister who was standing behind me, and she said, 'No one'. I couldn't really understand what it was, but to this day I believe it was God telling me it was going to be ok,' says Natalie.
'When we heard news here in the swimming pool, all the swimmers started crying. The whole team and myself. And then I said, 'Natalie, now we start. In a few weeks time when you can start swimming again, you are in the water and we start again,' says her swimming coach.
Two months after the amputation, with her wounds hardly healed, Natalie's doctor allowed her back into the water.
'I said to him, 'Can I swim?' and he said, 'Yes' and I actually burst into tears. I didn't know what to do ... it was getting back to life, it was carrying on with what I enjoyed ... My stump floats, so balance-wise I'm perfect, I'm perfect. Breaststroke was the most difficult stroke to get into. We used to do a lot of kicking and I kept swimming in a circle. I couldn't help it ... the way I had to start walking again, I had to start swimming again,' she says.
'She was never a kicker, she was always more an arms swimmer with a very strong upper body, and I told her, 'So Natalie, you've never been a kicker, so it doesn't really matter. If you have one leg or two legs it's not a big difference',' says Karoly.
Olympic gold medallist Sarah Ploewer knows only to well Natalie's fighting spirit, having trained with her for the past five years.
'She's very strong minded and she's always there fighting against the boys, being the fastest in the group. It has not changed anything, since the accident, from what she's done the previous year and I don't think it's very easy to have done it, and I don't think if I put myself in that same predicament, I don't know whether I would have done the same or if I could have,' says Sarah.
Four months after Natalie got back in the water she won gold in the Western Province Championships. In January this year, she won two silvers at the South African Short Course Championships. In the words of Penny Heyns, she's a true champion.
When Natalie's not immersed in water, it's her schoolwork and as this is her Grade 12 year at Reddam House, where she's on a sports scholarship, she can hardly goof off. Ziada Jardine and Natalie Burke are not fazed by their friends dogged determination..
'Most of here swimming friends nickname her 'machine'. She is unbelievably strong, she just goes and goes,' says Natalie Burke.
People say that perhaps Natalie does too much in her sporting career and her private life. She seldom says no to anything - be it presenting a prize, giving a speech, or raising funds for a good cause.
And so of course Natalie said yes when she was approached by Vista Nova , a school for those with cerebral palsy, to swim from Robbin Island to Bloubergstrand.
'And I managed to come tie with the guy that I swam with ... we came tie because he helped me out the sea. But we swam the whole way together, and it was nice. We had two whales swimming in front of us for part of the way. A lot of people say, 'Weren't you scared of the swim?' but you don't really see anything in the dark waters,' says Natalie.
Last Sunday, Natalie joined thousands and swum the Midmar Mile, finishing third in the water. Soon after losing her leg, Natalie made what was to some a bold and emotional statement that she would continue to train for the 2004 Olympics and not compete in the Para-Olympics. It's been a year and South Africa's swimming sensation has shown that winning is all in the mind.
Says Karoly: 'She was very upset, and people came to her and asked her about Para-Olympics. Until today, interviewers are phoning me about Natalie and asking in the interview, 'How is she swimming?' and I said, 'No, she was just winning a competition, she's winning championships, she was second in South African champs'. They said, 'Was it Para-Olympics, the handicapped championships?' and I say, 'No.' She's swimming against the able swimmers, and she thinks like that. That's what makes her strong.'
Natalie says that her accident was a growing experience and that she has learned to treasure her life more.
'I've grown up a lot since my accident and I think I understand a lot more about life and really treasure my life a lot more. Swimming-wise, I think I'm still the same. I still want to go out there and achieve the same goals, and basically I'm really the same ... (My stump) is part of me now, and you've got to like yourself before you like anyone else. I've come to terms with it,' she says.
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