Soccer inspired Greely senior’s healing after almost losing her ability to play

Sophie Cyr kicks the ball during practice earlier this season. Cyr missed her freshman season after an ATV accident, but, inspired by her love of the game, she worked her way back onto the pitch and is playing a big role for the Rangers this season. (Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer)

Sophie Cyr promised she would be safe.

At just 14 years old, she wasn’t allowed to drive her grandfather’s ATV without an adult, but she wanted to take her friend to the other side of Aroostook County’s Long Lake and take photos of the July 2022 sunset.

As they drove along the dirt road back toward Van Buren Cove, ready for the first night of vacation, it began to rain. The woods grew darker, and it was getting harder for Cyr to see where her turn was. They were about a mile away from the family camp – wait, was that it?

Cyr tried to make the turn, but she lost control of the ATV. The side-by-side went airborne, flipped over and landed on its side.

“I blacked out for a second,” said Cyr, now 17 and a senior at Greely High. “Because when I woke up, I was outside of the ATV. My friend was inside. She was completely fine. She had no injuries. I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt … not really sure (why). Learned a lesson that day.”

Unable to stand, Cyr climbed out of the ditch and sat on the side of the road for about 30 minutes waiting for her friend to return with help. Cyr knew something was wrong with her hip – she said it felt like a bee had stung her – but she wouldn’t find out the extent of her injuries until she was transported to Caribou’s Cary Medical Center later that evening, and then transported via helicopter to Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor the next morning.

Cyr had a shattered pelvis, 10 fractures along her spine, four broken ribs, a collapsed lung, and immense pain.

“Is she going to walk again?” her mother, Tracy Cyr, recalled asking the surgeon. “How are we going to start high school? Can she have a normal life?”

Sophie Cyr, weeks away from the first day of her freshman year at Greely, had one more question prior to the pelvic surgery.

“Will I be able to play soccer again?”

DETERMINED TO RETURN

Doctors estimated the full recovery process would take at least a year.

The surgery repaired most of her pelvis, but some parts didn’t require surgery. Neither did her other injuries. So rest and patience were crucial.

“I couldn’t do anything, because I was basically laying in bed for the longest time, waiting for myself to heal,” Cyr said.

To leave the Bangor hospital, Cyr needed to be able to bear her weight on one leg or manage essential daily tasks on her own.

“She had to learn how to sit up in bed,” Tracy Cyr said. “She had to learn how to put her back brace on, how to turn her body to slide herself into a wheelchair … She had an (occupational therapist) and a (physical therapist) there, but I just remember her yelling, screaming, to try to pull herself up. She wanted to go home. She was like, ‘I want to go home.’ It was her motivating factor.”

Sophie Cyr used soccer as a motivtation during her rehab from serious injuries suffered in an ATV accident prior to her freshman year at Greely. (Brianna Soukup/Staff Photographer)

On Aug. 5, 2022, Cyr returned to Cumberland. The homecoming, 15 days after the accident, was a birthday present to her mother. Cyr’s other motivating factor, a return to the soccer pitch, still seemed far away.

Greely coach Rachel Williams first met Cyr during summer soccer and quickly realized the positive-minded, intelligent, well-liked midfielder was one of the top players of the incoming freshman class. When Williams heard the news of the ATV accident, she was shocked.

“(We were) hoping she was gonna be able to walk, hoping she was gonna be able to get back to life,” Williams said. “And then, knowing that soccer was part of her motivation to continue to go through a pretty gritty process, it was like, ‘OK, you’re part of this team. What are we doing? How are we gonna support you?'”

When the Rangers had a home game, Cyr was on the sidelines, cheering from her wheelchair. If there was a team-building activity, Cyr was invited. Williams and JV coach Banak Thiwat would check in with the family to make sure Sophie was doing well and felt supported.

Cyr was happy for her freshman friends that made the varsity squad, but it was tough watching them play without her for the first time since joining the Cumberland soccer scene in middle school.

“Jealous is not the right word, but I wanted to be with them,” Cyr said. “Even if it was on a different team (like JV), I wanted to support them. Even though they did make me feel so included, it was hard to fully feel included because I wasn’t playing the actual sport. But, yeah, I was really determined. I had physical therapy every single day, and I was pushing myself really, really hard to recover.”

And she was progressing well.

By Oct. 1, Cyr was walking without crutches, almost two weeks quicker than originally anticipated. Daily sessions at Livevital Therapy in Portland turned into three times a week, and eventually two. It seemed like a full recovery was ahead of schedule – until the New Year.

SETBACK BEFORE THE COMEBACK

As Cyr regained strength, something wasn’t right with her gait. One of the screws inserted in August was pinching the pelvis and preventing full mobility, causing a glitch when she walked. Doctors recommended the screw be removed in order to continue her overall recovery, even if it delayed her soccer return.

In March of 2023, Cyr went back to Bangor to have the screw removed. The next day, she was back on her feet, and the glitch was gone. Tracy Cyr noticed a “night and day” difference. The two later learned that Sophie’s primary physical therapist wasn’t sure she would ever run or play soccer again if the screw wasn’t taken out.

“I always thought I was gonna get back out there and be with my friends, play the sport I love,” Cyr said. “But, yeah, that was crazy. When I heard that, I was like, ‘Oh, gosh.'”

Greely senior Sophie Cyr’s love of soccer fueled her rehabilitation after an ATV accident took her out of the game for several months. (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer)

In April 2023, Cyr was cleared to start kicking the ball. On May 6, nine months after leaving the hospital in a wheelchair, Cyr checked in for the Seacoast United club team and played for the first time since before her accident. When her sophomore year of high school rolled around, Cyr was back with her Greely teammates on the varsity team.

“It was crazy,” Cyr said. “It was a whole bunch of different emotions. I was like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I did this. I made it this far.’ Because there was a point where I was literally in the hospital bed, and I was being LifeFlighted and I could have died, and I’m now on a soccer field, fully able to use my body the way I was before, it’s just pretty cool. It was awesome.”

The Rangers went 14-0-4 on the way to a Class B state championship in 2024, and Cyr’s role has grown in her senior season this fall. Greely (10-5), the third seed, faces No. 2 Yarmouth (12-3) in the South semifinals Saturday afternoon. If the season ends earlier than the Rangers desire, Cyr knows she has overcome worse. After graduation, she wants to go into nursing.

“I’m proud of my daughter’s determination to overcome such a traumatic accident before her freshman year and return to the soccer field to play the game she loves,” said Tom Cyr, her father. “Her journey shows the power of perseverance and I hope it inspires others to push through what life puts in their path.”

“She’s an inspiration, for sure,” Tracy Cyr said. “Just turning a bad situation into a good one, and accepting you can’t look back. You gotta keep going forward.”