Split Second Spotlight: Returning to Joy
Sonya Shorty Comes Back Strong After Amputation
When you talk with Sonya Shorty, you immediately sense a bubbling joy within her. Her smile seems to beam through the phone and her voice feels infused with happiness. But it wasn’t always that way, and Sonya, who has a prosthetic leg, would be the first to tell you that.
“The days were dark and so heavy,” Sonya says. “And I was the worst. My mom could tell you. I just wanted to hole up in that room and die.”
Sonya is recalling her return home after spending four months in the hospital following a drunk driver hitting her Jeep Wrangler, leaving her with broken limbs and a severed leg. Before the November 3, 2019 accident, Sonya, 54, was very active, taking dance classes and swimming 3-4 times a week and the previous year had graduated from Tulane University with a master's degree in public health.
Making it worse for Sonya is that she returned to her home just as the COVID pandemic was beginning. Like many who suffer a catastrophic accident resulting in limb loss, she felt depressed and isolated in her grief, and it came when there were few opportunities to go out into the world.
An opportunity did arise in February 2021 when she heard on the news about a ribbon-cutting for the first inclusive fitness center, Split Second Fitness, for people living with disabilities.
“I remember it was a freezing cold day, but I went,” Sonya says. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t even afford the small monthly cost.”
That’s when the Ashé Cultural Arts Center came to her rescue. Led by Mama Jamila Peters-Muhammad, a group of women from the center banded together to pay for Sonya’s first year of her fitness membership. After additional surgery on her stump and a new prosthetic leg--Sonya calls her leg, Ms. Peggy (as in peg leg)--she began regularly working out at Split Second Fitness.
Between Ms. Peggy, driving again and working out, Sonya now feels very much connected to the world and her Split Second community . She is a regular at the fitness center, and she feels stronger all around.
“It’s strengthening not just my body, but also my mind and spirit,” says Sonya. “They encourage me and push me to do more. Just today. Marcus [a Split Second trainer] got me on the elliptical for the first time.”
