Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 21, 2015, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE B1 Hackers target adulterers / B4 CITY & BUSINESS CITY EDITOR: SHANE MINKIN 204- 697- 7292 I CITY. DESK@ FREEPRESS. MB. CA I WINNIPEGFREEPRESS. COM TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2015 B 1 O F BITS AND SPITZ... It was supposed to be a mellowest of protests on the most perfect of summer mornings. And that's the way it started. A bunch of potheads - including one who was actually wearing a pot and kitchen towel on his head - were gathered in the tree- shaded courtyard in front of the Public Safety Building making their quiet case for an unlicensed medical marijuana store on Main Street that police had paid a couple of visits to recently. All was going peacefully and respectfully. Or, as store owner Glenn Price rephrased it later, there was " no problem." " I take my hat off to the police department." And then, with the scent of weed wafting in the wind, someone with a different issue and in a less- mellow mood crashed the scene. And I do mean crashed. I was in the neighbourhood for the pot protest, but by the time I arrived just after 11 a. m. the damage had already been done. A driver had used the back of a white five- tonne truck as a battering ram on five police cars parked along Princess Street near the front entrance of police headquarters. When Price heard the first " crash" he didn't think much of it, having been a truck driver himself. " I thought he was backing up to deliver something," Price said. Obviously, having deliberately backed into two marked cruisers and three unmarked police vehicles, the driver was delivering something. A message. Reportedly, the driver behind the wheel of the truck had just been issued a ticket for distracted driving when he decided to drive by the police station and make his feelings known. Later in the afternoon, police announced they had arrested a suspect. This after a multi- car police pursuit along the Trans- Canada Highway west of Portage la Prairie that looked like something out of Smokey and the Bandit. Later, I read city police Sgt. Nick Paulet's perspective on the damage done beyond the obvious. " When you see this kind of damage happen, it is distressing, obviously, to officers, but it should be to members of the public. I mean, police officers represent the public and the interests of those people. It's an attack on all of us." He's right, of course. But not everyone saw it that way. I witnessed one young man smiling broadly at the smashed police cars. Out of surprise? Maybe. But that wasn't the impression I had. It's nothing to smile about. As Supt. Bill Fogg suggested while surveying the line of targeted vehicles. " We're just lucky no one got hurt." And lucky, I would add, the truck driver chose to take out his rage on cars. Not people. I'm sure that if the suspect is convicted, his lawyer will argue that point on sentencing. In the meantime, I hope whoever was driving - and not the owner of the truck - is made responsible for recovery of the tens of thousands of dollars in damage done. Because if the driver thought the traffic ticket he was reportedly given was expensive, he ain't seen nothing yet. . . . THE LAST LAUGH... Remember the story about the former Winnipegger from New Zealand and the cop who slapped him with a littering ticket for tossing sunflower seeds from his sunroof? Well, now hear this. We now have two more independent reports of more sunflower- seed littering. Or at least I do. On the day the column appeared a reader sent an email saying that same afternoon he was at Main Street and Mountain Avenue, stopped behind a police cruiser. "... And wouldn't you know it, the cop was throwing out sunflower seeds out the window." The witness even took down the police car's number and the time. Really? But then, two days later, another reader who had seen the column emailed. He identified himself as Jason Landon and his story sounded familiar, down to the general area. " The other day I was travelling down Main Street behind a cop car and noticed the driver's hand throwing something out every few seconds. I managed to pull up besides the police car and watched the driver eating sunflower seeds and THROWING the shells out the window. I was able to roll down my window and ask the cop what flavour he was eating. He replied with, ' seasoned flavour' and laughed at me. He gave me the thumbs- up and carried on his way down Main Street." Jason ended his email this way: " Whether or not the man from New Zealand was right or wrong I think the policeman who gave him the ticket was having a bad day." Or, as our pothead friends might suggest, maybe we all need to mellow out a little more. gordon. sinclair@ freepress. mb. ca Take it from the potheads: It's time to chill GORDON SINCLAIR JR. T HAT Kara Lodewyks can swing a kettle bell is nothing short of a miracle when little more than a year ago, she was in hospital with a broken neck. Look a little deeper into the C2 fracture she suffered in a devastating car crash June 13, 2014 - a similar injury to the one suffered by the late Christopher Reeve, the Superman actor who became a quadriplegic after being thrown from a horse in 1995 - it is shocking Lodewyks walks at all. A personal trainer, Lodewyks took her recovery to another level when she competed in a Fitness Star International competition May 9, just 11 months after injuries that could have proved fatal or permanently debilitating. " That vertebra broke in two places and I split my head open," said Lodewyks, 28. " It's just really phenomenal ( to have recovered). I don't even know why I'm alive. But I'm so thankful, every day." She doesn't know for sure why she was not paralyzed, in fact, she never lost feeling anywhere in her body. It may be because her spinal cord was not permanently damaged - a combination of good fortune and great care by medical personnel. On the night she was injured, Lodewyks was the passenger in a car that collided with another vehicle at Grant Avenue and Kenaston Boulevard. Lodewyks sustained a serious head injury that required 12 staples to the top of her scalp to close and a fracture of the C2 vertebra, located in the neck. That type of injury is often called the hangman fracture because it is known to occur in hanging deaths. " The doctor told me that 60 per cent of people with that break die right away and 30 per cent become paraplegic," she said. She was in the hospital for 10 days and fitted with a cervical thoracic orthosis neck/ upper- body brace which remained in place 24 hours a day for the duration of treatment. Lodewyks didn't need surgery - she said the two breaks in her vertebra weren't large enough to need to be fused - so the healing process began in the hospital with 30- second sessions of trying to stand on her own, followed a few days later by trying to take some steps. She wore the brace for nearly two months and couldn't look after herself so she moved home with her parents, Marilyn and Gus Lodewyks, who cared for her. " They were so awesome. I couldn't reach anything so I needed my mom to help me shower, get dressed, put my shoes on, brush my teeth. My mom and dad would help me change the pads on the neck brace because it had to stay on all the time, and hold my head. It was humbling," she said. Lodewyks has resumed her career as a personal trainer and continues to operate her own business, a Fitness on the Go franchise in which she has a staff of 10 personal trainers. Her staff travel to clients and train them in their home workout spaces. During the months of her recovery, she continued to manage her business with the support of her family and her staff. " You go from having everything in your life, everything going well, my business was growing and everything just came to a complete halt," Lodewyks said. She believes maintaining her business was another source of motivation for her. Physiotherapy, massage therapy and visits to the chiropractor were part of her healing journey. It was several months before she could resume any kind of vigorous exercise, but by February, she was ready to challenge herself. " I just wanted to get my life back," she said. " I need to heal my body as fast as possible." She decided to prepare for the Fitness Star event at the RBC Convention Centre and came out of it more determined than ever to help others facing physical challenges. Lodewyks said she had to modify some aspects of her fitness regime, but quitting was never an option. " People really need to know that there are so many things they can do, if something happens and they get injured. It doesn't mean your life is over and you stop trying. You can modify things. I'm a huge believer in if you give your body what it needs to function, it's incredible what the body is capable of doing but you have to give it the right tools." Lodewyks continues to deal with some short- term memory challenges, occasional headaches and has been diagnosed with a spinal disorder called propriospinal myoclonus, which causes involuntary muscle spasms throughout her abdomen. She's having an MRI next month that will help determine the next path for treatment. Lodewyks is a spiritual person and said she believes a higher power was watching out for her on that fateful night. " In my family we've joked that my dress was too tight that night, it was a little scandalous, and they wouldn't let me into heaven. But I have thought that maybe my grandma was in the back seat with me," she said. " It's more emotional now because when it happened, I was so focused on getting better. Now, when I think about it, it's just scary." ashley. prest@ freepress. mb. ca ' I don't even know why I'M ALIVE' City woman shares story of recovery after devastating car crash By Ashley Prest SUBMITTED PHOTO Kara Lodewyks wears a body brace in hospital after suffering a C2 fracture in her neck. WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Personal trainer Kara Lodewyks is ' so thankful' to be working out again after a devastating car crash last year. B_ 01_ Jul- 21- 15_ FP_ 01. indd B1 7/ 20/ 15 8: 51: 46 PM ;