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PARK CITY — High in the mountains of Park City sits the National Ability Center, a special place where people can heal. One of its newest employees is proof that sometimes the life you planned takes an 180-degree turn and drops you somewhere you would never have expected.
Each year the center welcomes more than 4,000 people — everyone from injured military veterans to people with autism.
"I was ranked second overall in the world for slopestyle half pipe skiing," skier Jamie Crane-Mauzy explained.
Crane-Mauzy traveled the world competing as a professional skier and Olympic hopeful.
"The first girl to ever land a double in the slopestyle competition and the only girl right now."
In April 2015, Crane-Mauzy was at the world tour finals in Whistler. Sitting in fourth place, she went out for another run and tried something even more ambitious.
"I was very competitive and I pushed the limits a lot," she said. "I under rotated and caught my ski. My head slammed into the snow. My brain started bleeding in eight spots. I hurt my brain stem, so my entire right side was paralyzed. I went into a coma."
Doctors said she should have died and remained in a coma for 10 days with a grim prognosis.
"There's no chance that Jamie will live independently, ever accomplish anything. She will never go back to skiing. We're not sure if she'll ever walk or drive a car again," she said, speaking about what doctors said at the time.
Every day since has been a struggle for Crane-Mauzy.
"When you have a traumatic brain injury you have to absolutely relearn everything."
And she means everything. That's when she first came to the center, not as an employee but a participant. Although she had a team of doctors helping her to recovery physically, she said the center offered her emotional healing as well.
"It chokes me up and made my dreams come true. So, for me, what they offered is the ability to live my dream life again," she said.
In November, she skied again for the first time.
"I'm never going to go back to who I was before and I'm never going to go back to competing the way I was before," she said.
It may not be the same course she set out on, but she's learned that sometimes life takes you down a different slope.
"I want to inspire people that they can live the life they want to live. I want to inspire people to go on and live a good life," she explained.
