Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
HURRICANE, Washington County — Madison Gill is no stranger to struggle.
"I'm just glad I'm still alive," the 18-year-old said.
Two years ago, Gill had spent a summer day at Sand Hollow Reservoir with her friends when their truck rolled on their way home. She and two of the other passengers were ejected from the vehicle.
"I just kept trying to get up, and I couldn't," Gill recalled. "When the first responders got there, they kept saying, 'Can you feel this? Can you feel that?' And I'm like, 'Feel what?' So that's when I knew something was messed up."
Gill was rushed to St. George Regional Hospital with a spinal fracture.
"They said, 'She's very bad. Go straight to the hospital,'" recalled Bridget Hagen, Gill's mother. After the phone call, she rushed to her daughter's side.
"She grabbed my hand, and I kept apologizing to her because I didn't have my seat belt on, so I'm like, 'This is all my fault,'" Gill said. "I kept her telling her I didn't wanna die like this."
Hagen said she was told if her daughter made it through surgery, she would never walk again. But Gill had different plans in store.
After spending months in the hospital and inpatient rehab, she returned home and began to adjust to her new reality.
"It's been a lot of ups and downs, mentally, physically, learning how to deal with everything that had to change," Hagen said.
There were setbacks that halted her progress, like the death of a friend, but Gill remained resilient.
"One day she says, 'I want to walk across the stage at graduation,'" Hagen said.
So, Gill started working with Tyson Winder, a physical therapist with Intermountain Health.
"I could just see from the get-go that she was not going to take 'no' for an answer," Winder said.
It's taken hard work and consistency.
"Even getting up and walking around the house, I made that like a goal of mine every day," Gill said.
But step by step, she's been getting stronger.
Then, with Winder by her side and her family in the stands in May, Gill walked across the stage to receive her high school diploma.
"I was just like, 'Don't fall, don't fall, don't fall,'" Gill said.
"It was cool to be there," Winder recalled. "Madi was a champion and was able to do it."
Gill defied the odds.
"She proved everybody wrong," Hagen said.
Through grit and determination, Gill showed that she could do anything—even what was once thought to be impossible.
"Don't let people tell you what you can and can't do, because you're gonna prove them wrong either way," she said.
