Medway high school hockey captain back on the ice after suffering burns from cooking accident
MEDWAY -- A high school student who was badly injured in a cooking accident is back on the ice. Haley MacLeod's determination and resilience have inspired her whole hockey team.
"I was just like I need to get back to hockey and school and want to be a normal kid," Haley told WBZ-TV.
But anyone who knows the student-athlete and team captain will say she is above normal --in fact, she's one of the most resilient kids at Medway High School.
Back in June, Haley suffered second and third-degree burns on 23% of her body in a cooking accident at her home. She had to be airlifted and spent a month at Shriners Hospital.
"My whole right side pretty much, the worst was probably my right thigh," she explained.
While rehabbing at Shriners, her teammates sent her a poster of the team, which hung in her hospital room as a reminder of how important she is to the hockey program and the school.
"I would wake up every morning and I would get up for them," said Haley. "I had to re-learn how to walk."
She even sent her head coach a video practicing hockey in the hospital with her dad, vowing to get back to the team.
"That lifted my heart and she said 'I'm ready, I want to get back,'" said Medway Girls Hockey Coach Carl Infanger.
Haley even inspired this year's motto which is "Always Moving Forward." Now she's back on the ice and scoring goals.
She said her burns have made her a more beautiful person inside and out.
"It definitely has affected me. But I also want to be something I show because it shows what I've been through," Haley said. "Showing your scars and moving through that."
"You make a mistake on the ice, doesn't matter, you move forward. You get burned and you have to go to Shriners every single day, you got to move forward," said Infanger.
Haley said this experience has changed her not just as a student but as an athlete as well. She hopes to take the lessons she's learned to inspire others facing a similar type of adversity.
"I want to go back to Shriners and inspire other burn patients and burn survivors," she said.
Haley thanks her family, her hockey team, and the team at Shriners for helping her pull through and making her the star she is both on and off the ice.
"Everyone goes through hard times in life and it doesn't matter what you are going through, perseverance and having goals and meeting those goals is just really nice," Haley said.
