A Comeback to Remember
Kim Klassen had just played the best match of her Spartan volleyball career. She had experienced a career best with 14 kills, helping her team win their final game of the season, a 3-2 victory over the University of British Columbia. Her team had obtained home court advantage in the post-season and was peaking toward their third straight trip to the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) women’s volleyball championships.
Little did the 21-year-old nursing student know that less than five hours later she wouldn’t know whether she would be able to walk, let alone spike another volleyball.
On the night of the season final, after spending some time with her friends, Klassen was driving home along 16th Avenue in Abbotsford, BC, when she was struck head on by an impaired driver at a speed believed to be around 130 km an hour. In that moment her life changed.
Klassen remembers, “A car was in my lane, actually so far over it was more like on the shoulder of my lane, coming straight for me. It all happened so fast that I just remember seeing lights coming at me. The road slopes so I lost the lights briefly and then saw them again. He hit my vehicle head-on.”
I just remember seeing lights coming at me. He hit my vehicle head-on.
Klassen recalls her immediate reaction after the impact, “I am studying nursing and so I was thinking, Okay, I am still alive. I am in extreme pain, but my legs are still there, and I can move.”
She sustained injuries throughout her entire body: neck and back injuries, soft tissue damage, and a serious concussion - but, miraculously, no broken bones. “For the first few months after the accident my head hurt so much that I couldn’t even read a book or watch a movie,” Klassen says.
Seven months after the accident, Klassen was not only back on her feet, but she was also back on the floor leading her team to victory. “It’s been a long and frustrating journey, but I am thankful for every day God gives me,” Klassen says. “Ultimately, I know that He has some purpose in it all, even if I cannot see it now. I take comfort in I Corinthians 13:12, ‘For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.’”
by Scott Stewart '02
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