How this athlete competing in Rio 2016 survived being crushed by her father’s forklift truck

Charlie Crowhurst / Getty

Samantha Kinghorn representing Great Britain at the 2015 IPC Athletics World Championships in Doha.

British Paralympian Samantha Kinghorn, 20, grew up in the Scottish Borders region. As a child she liked to help her father, Neil, on the family’s farm.

In November 2010, when Samantha was 14, she accompanied her father as he cleared their neighbours’ driveways during a snowstorm, with his forklift truck. Due to the weather conditions, visibility was poor.

Feeling playful, Samantha, who was enjoying the four-foot-deep snow, climbed onto the slowly moving vehicle, under the impression that her father could see her — but he couldn’t. Above the teenager, the truck’s forks were raised, holding a heavy bucket of snow.

Suddenly, Neil lowered the forks to empty the load, squashing Samantha under the weight of the packed snow and ice.

“I was sitting and it crushed my shoulders downwards until my back popped,” Samantha told Business Insider. “I panicked and I knew I needed to get out. When my dad started to bring the bucket back up, I knew that I only had a certain amount of time to get out and make my Dad see I was there before he lowered it again.”

Blocking out the excruciating pain in her back, Samantha dragged herself out of the way, managing to form something halfway between a run and a crawl.

The next moment, she slipped on the ice and fell. Samantha felt her legs tingling and each toe jerking individually, before all of her muscles tensed up.

“As soon as that happened, I knew I was never going to walk again,” she said.

In the six years since her back was broken and she was paralysed from the waist down, she became obsessed with wheelchair racing, training for six days a week in all seasons, on the roads surrounding her family’s farm.

At 18, Samantha won three gold medals at the European Championships and on July 26, she was named as one of the 25 British athletes who will be flown to Rio de Janeiro to compete in the Paralympics this summer.

We spoke with Samantha to learn about how she turned a family tragedy into international sporting success.

Samantha was born on January 6, 1996. She remembers having a happy childhood with her father Neil, mother Elaine, and older brother Chris on her family’s farm in the Scottish Borders.

The farm — where the Kinghorns grow arable crop and rear sheep and cows — provided Samantha with “lots of space to run around and play,” and gave her an early passion for animals. Before the accident, Samantha had planned to go to university and become a zoologist.

In her school reports, Samantha was often described as a “social butterfly.” Teachers lost their patience as she chatted with whoever sat next to her. And though she enjoyed Biology and English, but admits that she “could have tried harder” academically.

Outside of lessons, Samantha enjoyed hockey, ballet, and gymnastics. But she didn’t think she would make a career out of sports. “I wasn’t ever going to be an athlete or anything,” she said.

When Samantha broke her back, she was paralysed from the waist down, but lost none of her affable personality.

After the accident, Samantha was taken to the Queen Elizabeth National Spinal Unit, where she spent six months learning how to balance without her legs and lifting weights until she could heave her own body around the eight-bed hospital dorm.

In the evenings, Samantha bonded with the other patients over takeaway, which they ordered instead of eating the hospital’s “absolutely horrific” food.

“There were so many incredible people around me getting over things that were far worse,” Samantha said. The other patients had injuries caused by anything from “horse riding, or car accidents, to tripping over a curb.”

Many of the patients entered The Spinal Unit Games, an event where recently injured patients compete at various disability sports.

On her first go at wheelchair racing, a man approached Samantha and told her: “You could be really good at this.”

That man was Dr. Ian Thompson, the husband of Baroness Tanny Grey-Thompson — one of Britain’s most successful Paralympians. At the time, Samantha had no idea who either of them were.

Nevertheless, when Samantha returned home from hospital, she was determined to get a wheelchair racing coach.

She was soon introduced to coach Ian Mirfin, who asked her what she planned to get out of the training.

“I want to go to Rio,” she said.

Meanwhile, she was nervous about returning to Earlston High School, which she had attended before the accident. Worried she would stand out, Samantha began looking into schools specially suited to disabled students.

“You’re coming back to school,” Caris Page, Samantha’s best friend, told her on when she heard about Samantha’s plans to transfer.

“She pretty much dragged me through the front door,” Samantha said.

After an initial period of awkwardness, Samantha quickly fitted back into normal school life. “Once people realised I was exactly the same, no one really cared,” she said.

In the evenings, Samantha began training, following her new coach’s demanding regime.

Wheelchair racing is “quite technical,” Samantha explained. “Everyone thinks you’re just grabbing the cisterns and pushing them, but you’re not. You don’t grab them at all, you hit them. Hitting them is the way to get power.”

Samantha mastered the hitting technique unusually quickly. Now the athlete focuses on improving her strength and power, training twice per day, six days a week, and lifting weights every other day.

Samantha’s training sessions are almost entirely self-motivated and take place on the roads around her family’s farm, many miles away from her coach in Glasgow.

“It’s quite difficult sometimes, especially through the winter, because you think you’re doing well, but you’ve got no one else to judge yourself against,” she said.

Sometimes, Samantha’s father Neil or boyfriend Conor accompanies her on training sessions to give encouragement. They take bikes to keep up.

“My boyfriend’s more of a shouter,” Kinghorn said. “But my dad just has a chat with me and I’m like: ‘Dad I’m trying really hard. I can’t chat right now!’”

Kinghorn’s first major race was the 2012 Girls Under-17 London Mini Marathon. Unaware of the extent of her natural aptitude for the sport, Kinghorn had only hoped to finish.

Instead she came second, just behind the reigning British champion.

This early success motivated Kinghorn to train even harder. In July 2014, she was chosen to represent Scotland in the Commonwealth Games.

“When I came out at the Commonwealth Games for the first time, there were like 50,000 people singing,” Kinghorn remembered. “It was just incredible and humbling.”

Later in the summer of 2014, Kinghorn travelled to Swansea to represent Great Britain in the European Championships.

Here, on her British debut, she smashed all expectations by winning three gold medals, in the 100, 400, and 800-metre events.

When she represented Great Britain in the 2015 World Championships in Doha, Samantha came away with a bronze medal in the T53 200-metre race.

Even despite her sensational record, the 20-year-old was worried that she would not be selected for the Paralympics.

“It’s Rio, not London. They can’t send as many athletes,” she explained. “It’s more expensive, so you don’t get as large a team. You have just got to hope that there are enough spaces for you.”

Samantha, on a plane, missed the phone call from the Paralympic committee to tell her whether or not she had been picked.

They did not call back until much later. After a nervous wait, the news was positive: she had selected to race in the 100, 400, and 800-metre events. Samantha, who celebrated by drinking chilled champagne with her family and boyfriend, was both “excited” and “relieved.”

The next day, she was up early for training.

In spite of Samantha’s accident six years ago, it is clear from speaking to the Paralympian that her family have remained very close.

Samantha still finds time to help out on the farm in between races, often using a quad bike to get around independently.

In return, Neil built a roller treadmill out of parts from an old combine harvester for Samantha to use to train indoors when the roads become icy and dangerous during the winter.

“My dad’s a bit tight-fisted,” Samantha joked. “He wouldn’t buy me [a treadmill] so he built one … It’s heavy but really good. It seems to get me quite strong.”

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