Erica Burleigh reported to her local hospital seeking some IV fluids for what a doctor told her was a bad flu – she woke up from a coma three days later – rubbing her eyes – wondering why everything was blurry.
No matter how many times she rubbed them the blurriness didn’t disappear – and hasn’t 22 years later. But having just one per cent vision in her right eye and 10-20 per cent in her left hasn’t stopped the Tassie local chasing her dream of representing Australia at the Commonwealth Games and hopefully the Paralympics in 2024.
Burleigh was 17 and the bad flu she was told she had turned out to be meningococcal B.
“I was so unwell,” she said.
“While I was in hospital they sort of sat me up to see if I could stand and I fell down and fell into a coma. I was on life support and in an induced coma for three days.”
Doctors had managed to get the infection under control but not before it attacked Burleigh’s optic nerves.
“At first they thought I would get my full sight back so it was very odd,” Burleigh said.
“Everytime I would wake up in the morning I’d be rubbing my eyes to try and you know see properly again but it still wouldn’t come back. It was just always really blurry.”
It was devastating for the active Tassie teen who had just a few months earlier got her driver’s licence.
Burleigh played netball for her school and club and loved swimming, bodyboarding and surfing when the family holidayed at Bruny Island.
“It had a huge, huge impact on me,” she said.
“I had just got my independence and then all of a sudden to be told you know you are not going to get your eyesight back. You are never going to drive again – my whole life changed.
It took Burleigh a year to adjust to her new normal and find a way to live without her eyesight.
“I didn’t really do much for that year but after that is when I recall thinking ‘right what am I going to do’,” she said.
So she joined a local gym, finding great joy in the spin classes. Then a local bootcamp.
“Basically I decided to never think I couldn’t do something until I’d given it a go,” Burleigh said.
“People were always willing to help as well. At bootcamp I would just follow someone else and if I fell over, which I did quite a few times I’d just get back up and brush myself off.”
Everytime Burleigh, 39, watched the Paralympics she would get inspired – it has led her to try a range of sports over the years – including boxing.
“It was last year when I was watching the Olympics and watching Ariarne Titmus, who is obviously from Tassie, win all of her medals that made me think it is now or never.
“I’m going to put myself out there and see what I can do.”
Burleigh took up swimming in November last year. A month later she had decided she wanted to give a triathlon a go.
One of the men she had been doing some ocean swimming with had a tandem bike in his garage and was willing to take Burleigh for a ride.
“I hadn’t actually ridden a bike since primary school so getting on the bike with somebody else and trusting them while you go quite fast, sometimes up to 50km/h, is quite scary. But you have to learn to trust your guide.”
In January she competed in her first local triathlon.
“I finished it,” Burleigh said. “It was really good and I really enjoyed it, it was just a practice run but I thought I want to get better at this.”
Come May Burleigh was confirmed as part of the triathlon team, alongside guide Felicity Cradick, bound for the Birmingham Commonwealth Games – the first Commonwealth Games to feature a vision impaired paratriathlon category.
Aside from soaking up the experience and learning from other athletes Burleigh has just two goals for the Games.
The first is to not come last and the second to finish with a personal best time.
“Obviously I’m new to this so I’m nowhere near as fast as some of the other girls that have been doing this for years,” she said.
The women’s vision impaired paratriathlon is on July 31.
Originally published as Para-triathlon Commonwealth Games 2022: How Erica Burleigh ‘cheated death’