Reflexes
- Sahily Carrero lost her arm in a terrible work accident at the end of 2020.
- She says playing soccer again was “like therapy.”
- The Colombian is now coaching a team of moms at her club.
When Ms Carrero decided to return to the soccer field in Australia, she says she felt overwhelmed with fear, not to mention feeling insecure and judged.
She says that after losing her arm in a work accident, her mental health had deteriorated.
However, she says football has proven key to improving her mental health, forcing her to “live in the moment” to the point that she sometimes forgets about her disability entirely.
“I only played like 15 minutes in my first game and I cried happy tears after the game because I felt like everything stopped, everything was the same as before (the accident), nothing had happened (to me).” Carrero told SBS Spanish.
“I was enjoying the moment. Everything was fine, there was peace, quiet, everything was perfect.”
The Melbourne-based Colombian student says she always knew playing soccer again would be fraught with difficulties after losing her arm.
“I was very scared because my English was not the best. Also, psychologically, people see you without an arm and say, ‘You’re not going to do well.’ But in my mind, I knew that I loved this. I had been playing football for many years and I could do it,” she said.
The young Colombian woman arrived in Australia in 2020 excited by the progress she had seen in her older brother, who had already been living in the country for some time.
Ms Carrero says that, like many other international students, as soon as he set foot on Australian soil, she began studying and looking for work.
With her limited English, she was able to get a job cleaning houses a few weeks later, she said.
But since the income wasn’t enough, he says he kept looking for work and eventually got a job at a food factory in Victoria.
However, he had barely been at his new job for three months when he had a serious accident in which his arm got caught in a machine, he said.
I woke up in the hospital and saw my bandaged arm, but I could see my fingers. In my mind I thought: ‘everything is fine, it was not serious, they saved me’. I didn’t remember many things. I still don’t remember.
sahily carrero
However, after months of operations and recurring infections, Ms Carrero says surgeons told her her arm needed to be amputated to save her life.
“At the time I was in a lot of pain in the hospital and I was in a lot of pain, so I said, ‘Yeah, I want to live. I don’t care. Take it off… take it off!’ she said.
Ms. Carrero’s surgery lasted over 11 hours and even then, it was still difficult due to more infections.
A couple of weeks later, he says he’s over the worst, but a long road to recovery, therapies and treatments awaited him. Then, for a few more months, she says she lived in the hospital trying to adjust to his new reality.
She says her overwhelming urgency was to return to Colombia to recuperate with her family and friends.
However, because it was an accident at work, she says she was bound to Australia for ongoing treatment and therapy, so she reluctantly moved in with her brother and began her journey as an outpatient.
Seven months after the accident, his visits to the hospital became less frequent, and he says he was able to start planning what he would do with his life in the future.
I think this made me very strong emotionally and mentally because when you face death, you are alone, you feel empty. In that void, I rebuilt myself.
Sahily Carrero is rebuilding her life after losing her arm in a work accident. Credit: supplied
“Football came to my rescue”
Sport has always been part of Ms. Carrero’s life. She said that she had played club soccer since she was a little girl.
For her, being on the pitch forced her to be in the moment just to focus on being happy, so with that confidence she returned to soccer, except now in Australia.
A few months ago, Ms Carrero missed out on her first match with a women’s team based at the Fawkner Soccer Club, north of Melbourne.
“Even though I had a hard time running, all I could think was, ‘Thank you, thank you!’ I was very grateful because I said: ‘I am alive and I am here, playing a game that I love’… It was also something very nice because a lot of people saw me and I imagined that they were thinking: ‘if she can do it, I can do it,’ “he said Mrs. Carrero.
The young Colombian says that at first it hurt her to meet the gaze of other players or spectators who looked at her curiously, even strangely.
She said she cried a lot at night, but little by little she managed to turn those curious glances into motivation to show that she could play like any player and inspire people at the same time.
But the moment of his greatest personal victory came when he scored his first goal in an Australian field, he says.
I was crying and grateful for everything that was happening. Because despite everything that happened to me, I said, ‘I’m here and I’m doing it.
Sahily Carrero.
Ms. Carrero is in the process of building a new life. A little over two years after her work accident, she says she somehow manages to work every day on her recovery, attend therapy appointments, attend soccer practices and, as if that were not enough, she has become a coach and inspiration for a group of moms who play soccer.
She says that she is currently looking for a job where she can help other people, whether it is in sports or with people with disabilities. However, she says she is not ruling out the possibility of playing in a higher division or becoming the coach of a women’s soccer team in Australia.
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