Page 6 - Real Rochdale Issue 20 Winter 2023

and nerves, but unfortunately her symptoms spurred on to apply for the 2023 games in
Photos: Royal British Legion
Kelly McVitty:
Team UK’s vice-captain wins big at Invictus GAMES
Kelly McVitty is a military veteran originally from Heywood.
She now lives in Spain and landed five medals at the 2023
Invictus Games, an international multi-sport event for
wounded, injured and sick servicemen and women, both
serving and veterans.
The games aim to demonstrate the power
of sport to inspire recovery, support
rehabilitation and demonstrate life beyond
disability.
Once a critical care nurse for the Princess
Mary’s Royal Air Force Nursing Service,
looking after people on life support and
treating injured personnel returning from
Iraq and Afghanistan, an unfortunate collision
in Afghanistan in 2012 changed Kelly’s life.
Kelly was working on a patient in an
ambulance when another road user forced
the ambulance to an emergency stop. Kelly
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didn’t improve. Düsseldorf – and made the team in January
2023.
In 2020, she was medically discharged, losing
her job as a critical care nurse. She also Kelly competed across three disciplines –
moved to Spain in March of that year, as the one-armed swimming, recumbent cycling and
warmer weather helps with her symptoms, a 100m relay athletics race. She had been due
which are exacerbated when using her left to take part in athletics, but with no-one else
side and can last for several weeks at a time. in her disability classification, she was unable
to compete. However, she was added to other
“I began looking at courses and events to classifications so she could still run, throw
attend, to see what else I could do outside and take part in the long jump.
of the military,” she said. “One of these
included the Invictus Games trials to learn She said: “It was more important for me to
about adaptive sports. My injury stopped take part and show the world what I can do,
me playing many other sports I enjoyed. I in spite of my disability.”
eventually stopped many activities as the
pain I felt afterwards wasn’t worth it. The relay team ultimately placed third and
landed a bronze medal, before Kelly would
“I lost all enjoyment in keeping fit until I went take her first gold and her silver in swimming.
along to the trials where they showed me Despite not being, in her words, “a confident
Kelly was selected for the 2020 games and silver for her backstroke.
swimmer,” Kelly won gold in the breaststroke
how to adapt sports to my injury.”
was pregnant with her son, Jaxon. Upset
breaststroke using one arm in February this
but had to withdraw after finding out she She explained she only learned to swim
she hadn’t managed to take part due to
year, keeping her head in the water.
pregnancy and a traumatic birth, Kelly was
was thrown sideways, hitting the left side of
her body and woke up the next day, unable to
move.
Left with a variety of symptoms – including
pins and needles, lethargy, neck and jaw
tension and hypersensitivity – Kelly was
diagnosed with swelling of her shoulder
nerves, as well as compression of her blood
vessels and nerves between the collarbone
and the first rib.
Kelly underwent surgery in 2017 to remove
her first rib and one of her neck muscles to
try and relieve the compression in her artery
REAL ROCHDALE - WINTER 2023