NZ Representative Sportswoman Suffers Near Death Injury In Trans Tasman Football Tournament

After a head collision in a Trans Tasman football game in 2016, NZ Representative sportswoman Natasha Smith underwent Emergency spinal surgery to save her life. Natasha has always played representative sport at a high level since she was young. She started with competing in Athletics and swimming and then moved to state level in Australia with basketball when she was a teenager.

“I continued to train hard and finally when the opportunity to play internationally representing my country came up, of course I took it without a second thought.”

In their first season, Natasha and her team bought home tournament Gold and Bronze Medals, all the while operating a successful gym where she trained clients as a fitness and nutrition coach. Her life changing injury happened during the first Trans Tasman tournament of her second season.

After successful spinal surgery, Natasha has ended up with a metal plate and 4 screws fusing the vertebrae of her neck together. As she lay in recovery, her surgeon told her she potentially could have permanent nerve damage with the loss of control of her left arm and may never walk again, let alone play sport.

During her recovery, Natasha committed herself to more full time study and changed her own training style with the goal of overcoming her post surgery fatigue. The results spoke for themselves, and after another six months she was stronger and fitter than she had ever been. She was on her way back to playing representative sport even though she was advised never to play again.

Since completing her recovery, Natasha has completed another season of international representative sport and has since Won 2 more tournament Gold medals. To top it all off she has even been selected to join the world cup squad. She has now sold her gym as she wants to focus more on bringing all of her combined knowledge online and into the future.

Natasha is a well known Fitness and Nutrition identity. She is best known as co-founder of the Aspiring Adventurers, an online fitness and nutrition and fitness platform offering services to clients internationally.

© Scoop Media