Hockey Player's First Words Since Horrific Injury Will Take Your Breath Away
Denna Laing’s photo on her Facebook fan page. (Photo: Facebook)
It’s been 12 days since professional women’s hockey player Denna Laing tumbled into the boards during the Winter Classic on Dec. 31 and was carried away strapped to a stretcher amid a silent Gillette Stadium. Laing, 24, plays for the Boston Pride, and skated for Princeton’s women’s hockey team. She’s been in the hospital since that day, with what her family says are serious injuries — “limited movement in her arms, and no feeling in her legs,” the New York Post reports.
Some big news today! #talking #ppw pic.twitter.com/Dqe6JhOInw
— Denna Laing (@dlaing14)
She hadn’t been able to speak until yesterday (Jan. 11), when she posted a video of her first words after getting a tracheostomy. “Hello,” she said, with a smile on her face. “I’m back!” “Some big news today!” she tweeted, along with the video. It’s since been retweeted over 1,500 times and favorited over 3,000 times.
But that’s not it for the inspiring hockey player: on Saturday, Laing posted about her injury on Facebook, saying she’d been looking for a new challenge before her fall. She called the Winter Classic, an annual event held by the NHL in a different city every year, the “best day of her life,” and says she wouldn’t take any of the moments back:
For a long time I have been looking for a new challenge. Even though I was not expecting it be this, here we go. Lets start from the beginning, the best day of my life. I woke up on a beautiful 31st of December and got my dunks because ?#?required?. I drove to the rink and walked in with the pack, my pod, and my gold pumps. When we got in there, there were individual name plates and merchandise from the NHL. All I could think about was it was like Christmas. We immediately all had to try everything on. Here are some of the candids of the gals. Then had to sit around for about an hour and then try getting on and off the bus with our skates! We got a police escort and we thought we could find TB12 because we pulled up right into the player tunnels. We got out into some small locker rooms. Bobby gave us his pre game speech and we walked on and saw the field for the first time. I had debated back and forth whether or not to bring my phone and man am I glad I brought it. It was the most beautiful hockey rink I’ve ever seen. After those first few minutes of skating around tragedy struck. You know the rest…. but I dont want you to feel bad for me. This is a moment to remember for Women’s Hockey. We made history that day and I would never take those moments back.
We’re calling it now: This “hello”? Infinitely better than Adele’s.
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