On Sunday, August 25, Leitchville woman Angela Nuss will finally achieve her dream of running a marathon.
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In 2015 Ms Nuss was travelling from Leitchville to Geelong and her life changed forever when her car hit a ditch, flipped and crashed.
Ms Nuss was taken to the Alfred hospital in Melbourne where doctors told her she had three options.
“They told me I would die, remain on life support or never walk again,” Ms Nuss said.
“I have six pins in my neck.
“In the first 24 hours I had a couple of strokes in the balance centre of my brain, then after that a blood clot developed where they did that first surgery."
Ms Nuss defied the odds and after months of lying in a hospital bed and countless rehab sessions, she slowly started to walk again.
But now she prefers to run and said people had nicknamed her Forest Gump.
Since her accident Ms Nuss decided her new goal would be to run a marathon and in less than a month she will complete the Shepparton Running Festival's 42 km.
Although this is her first marathon, Ms Nuss is familiar with long-distance running and in the past two years has completed many long-distance runs including a half-marathon and the challenging 10 km Run the Rock at Hanging Rock.
Ms Nuss had always been a runner and said "she was born to run" but it was only after her accident that she developed confidence to do so.
“Before my accident I was way too shy to enter running events,” she said.
“Eventually I would have done them, but vanity was my problem.
“But when you have an accident you find out what’s important and you don’t care what you look like."
Ms Nuss has completed a weekly 20 km run and has also developed a special diet of sardines and kidney beans to help fuel her body throughout the race.
Ms Nuss believes in the power of the mind and now helps other survivors of traumatic car accidents with with the help of Transport Accident Commission and she is also in the initial stages of writing a book.
“The mind is so strong you don’t have to accept what’s happened to you," she said.
“You go through the pain and tears and push through the pain barrier.
“If you have a dream or a goal, the sky is the limit and you can achieve anything in your life."