A tragic accident. Emergency surgery. Less than-ideal chances of survival and a coma couldn’t stop Skye Da Silva. This year, she completed the Comrades and won a medal of heart only few can say they’ve earned—triumph over adversity. This is Skye’s story:
Johannesburg, South Africa (29 July 2024) — A fateful December day in 2022 saw Skye Da Silva face the biggest challenge of her life. What began as a long weekend of mountain biking in Bela Bela with friends turned into a small fall with great consequences and a massive shift in the trajectory of Skye’s story forever. A trajectory that would lead her to understand just how powerful her mind is, how strong her heart is, and how invincible anyone is when they accept that they are not a product of their environment.
Skye had fallen on a gravel road after 2 hours of riding. However, there were two support vehicles trailing behind and one which did not see Skye’s fall; consequentially riding over her.
Even when retelling that moment, Skye does so with a glance at the silver lining.
“Luckily my bike took most of the blow,” she recalls. But the blow she did take crushed her face, upper trachea, shoulders and ribs.
Flown by helicopter to Milpark Hospital, Skye’s prognosis of survival wasn’t looking good. After emergency surgery, where 40 plates and 60 bolts were placed to reconstruct her face, her jaw was wired, and a first-of-its-kind surgery was done on the 5cm tear in her throat; she would lie in a coma for three weeks.
Doctors at this point, said there was only so much they could do. It was up to me and God. When I woke up they called me a true miracle.
Doctors at this point, said there was only so much they could do. It was up to me and God. When I woke up they called me a true miracle.
“23 kgs lighter, I woke up to a loving family and group of friends,” she tells Good Things Guy.
Once again, spotlighting the silver lining of what most would deem the darkest cloud of an experience; sharing how much her loved ones supported her by making her smoothies, visiting on rotation and even helping her get her hair and nails done.
Weaker than ever and just a coin’s throw from death’s door, Skye did something incredible—she chose not to let any of what had happened define her. With the knowledge that she’d still be able to walk (despite needing to relearn everything from taking steps to blinking), it would only be a mere 17 months until she proved her mental tenacity and unwavering spirit and competed in the Comrades she’d signed up for that year!
“I still remember the moment I decided not to identify as injured or sick, and decided to fight to get out of the hospital.
“I had been awake for 3 days and needed to see one of the surgeons. I was wheel chaired to his offices just outside the hospital and it was the first time I felt the sun on my skin. It was the most incredible feeling (as in the coma I was sooooo cold). I burst out crying thinking how brilliant it was to be awake, to be alive. And from that moment, you couldn’t stop me.”
Skye adds that it was also her father, Joe, who inspired her to rally for the race (and for life) once more with his words, “You cannot let the bad things that happen to you define the way you live the rest of your life.”
For his influence in her mental and physical recovery, Skye couldn’t be more grateful.
“It was him who got me moving—and didn’t let me stop moving—when I got back home. He would walk with me slowly, patiently up and down the road when I couldn’t even do 1km at a time. He kept pushing me to do more and more each day.
“And when I saw my Coach again a few weeks later, I said, ‘Will you train me for Comrades 2024?’ To his credit, he didn’t skip a beat saying, ‘He wouldn’t have it any other way’!”
But there would be an immense amount of mental and physical work to do beyond the can-do spirit.
Considering that in January 2023, Skye was so weak drinking water was a challenge, the physical effort she underwent was beyond what most of us can comprehend. Then there’s the mentality aspect to Skye’s story—the most important.
“With me it’s all mental. I have no running talent and my job keeps me busy…but for me, it’s always that small little sentence that when it gets dark, I know where to find some light: ‘don’t let the bad, but [rather] the good things define you!”
Armed with a mind focused on what was possible, Skye’s slow walking up the driveway eventually became walking further. Then, running only a few months later, albeit slowly. By October, Skye’s recovery had gone so well that she re-entered the Cape Town marathon to qualify for the Comrades.
However, life dealt her another blow—the heart-wrenching news that her hero, her dad, had passed away.
“If you know me—this moment was my biggest fear. My father and I were inseparable, called each other 4 times a day, drank beers together, spoke about everything important and unimportant—I could not imagine a world without him! It was then that I thought yet another Comrades entry was going to go unused—I had no will to train. I was busy making sure my mom and sister were okay!”
But, her coach, squad and friends encouraged her to keep striving for the Comrades, largely in honour of Skye’s dad. And so she trained—on the days she didn’t even want to get out of bed, on the days she felt unmotivated and the days where even moving seemed like an impossible task.
“People drive to another town to run with me to do my qualifying marathon! Team mates would come second me on my long 60km runs! And it was on the Two Oceans Ultramarathon where I was struggling at the halfway mark, and I whispered, Dad stay close—and all of a sudden his favourite song boomed out of the loud speaker—A Bad Moon Rising!”
After all that and the completion of the Two Oceans, she knew the Ultimate Human Race had to be next—an Ultimate Human Race like no other in the truest sense of the phrase.
When it was time to face the Comrades, Skye remembers the day being “intensely beautiful”.
With no time goal and two close friends at her side, the Comrades unfolded gorgeously like the end of a chapter.
“It was the journey to the Comrades that was the toughest—not the day itself,” Skye reflects.
“We had the most magical time winding the streets together and my best friend Storme saw that if we pushed it at the end, we could get a sub-11 hour race! A BRONZE MEDAL! So we sprinted the last 5kms.”
Skye finished the race in under 11 hours!
From her dad to her friends, running squad, mom and sister (her biggest cheerleaders), Skye marvels at how her accomplishment on her own feet was actually the product of so many others. So many hearts. So many rooted in her support.
“Crossing that finish line, is an amazing feeling. It had taken everything I had, everything a team of people had around me and a dad looking down on me to cross it! To sum up, while running is an individual sport, I would say crossing the finish line at Comrades is such a team effort and team win.”
Skye’s race to the Comrades and through it, is a real life telling of the capacity the human spirit has to push forward. To overcome. To stand in the face of adversity and put it in its place.
Her story reminds us the sheer power that comes from planting the right mental seeds, watering them with enough support from others and above all else, deciding that we will bloom even when everything is telling us we shouldn’t.
As the hero of this story says so beautifully in addressing anyone facing the unimaginable:
“You are stronger than you think. The world is brighter than you think. And always look at the good things in life to keep you going… Don’t be a product of your environment. Make your environment a product of you.”—Skye Da Silva.
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