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t m c » p u l s e | m a y 2 0 1 8 4 RACING TO O n Feb. 20, 2016, Adessa Ellis was cycling along Highway 90 in Fort Bend County when a drunk driver in a black Jaguar hit her from behind. She flew 25 feet into the air and landed in muddy, stagnant water. As she lay there, her major organs started to fail and a deep puncture in her lower back opened her body to infection. By the time paramedics arrived, Ellis was all but dead. She was taken by Life Flight to the Memorial Hermann Red Duke Trauma Institute, where surgeons performed an extremely risky procedure called an open thoracotomy, making a large incision in her chest wall to gain access to her heart, lungs and other organs. It was her only shot at survival, and it worked. But Ellis was broken. In addition to the trauma to her heart, she suffered a lacerated liver, collapsed lungs, traumatic brain injury and severe nerve dam- age. She shattered bones in her ribs, hip, pelvis and both legs. Her teeth had been knocked out, and infections ravaged her body. She endured surgery after surgery at Memorial Hermann, then transferred to TIRR Memorial Hermann and then Kindred Hospital Houston Medical Center for rehabilitation. On Oct. 12, eight months after the accident, physicians amputated her left leg below the knee—a decision made, in part, because it provided a more straightforward path to recovery and would allow Ellis, a triathlete, to return to running, swimming and cycling. Half joking, Ellis asked her surgeons to give her the "runner's cut." She later learned that they had performed a specialized reconstructive surgery— known as the Ertl procedure—that left her with a stable limb that has the potential to bear the weight of a sports prosthetic. A week after her amputation, Ellis was finally released from care. After arriving home, she promptly removed the hospital bed that had been arranged for her. That, she said, went against all of her plans. • • • One morning in late March, Ellis, now 40, prepared to work out in her Sugar Land, Texas, home. The furniture in her living room had been pushed aside to make room for exercise equipment—a handcycle, stationary bike, yoga mats and weights. Shelves of helmets, medals and other relics from competitions surrounded her, along with pictures of her two daughters, now 17 and 20, and statues of crosses and angels. Cheers from 'The Price Is Right' game show emanated from a television turned low. Ellis wore a cycling jersey and bike shorts, her curly hair, air-dried, fell just past her shoulders. It had taken her two hours just to get out of bed that morn- ing because of how stiff her joints and muscles had grown during the night. She compared herself to the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz who needed oiling in order to move. Two hours—and yet she does it, every day. Two years after a horrific bicycle accident, Adessa Ellis is rebuilding her body By Alexandra Becker