FSJ flight instructor working towards walking again after Springbank crash

SPRINGBANK, ALTA – A Fort St. John-based flight instructor is on the path to recovery after a plane crash landed her in the hospital with critical injuries and left another man dead.

Megan Gallagher, 23, told Global News that she’d planned to train a student on a plane he’d bought from Flightsimple Aircraft Sales then-president Micheal Wilton.

“I was supposed to go up for a flight with Michael, and then me and my student were supposed to fly back to Fort St. John either that day or the next day,” Gallagher said.

Despite not being able to remember Wilton or what he looked like, Gallagher recalls going on a “check out” flight with him because she was unfamiliar with the refurbished plane’s equipment.

After the crash, Gallagher was taken to hospital in life-threatening condition. Wilton was pronounced dead at the scene.

According to Global News, the next thing she remembers is waking up in the hospital, paralyzed and in a panic.

“I think I panicked because I couldn’t remember the accident, and I thought I was in a crash on the West Jet flight (from Fort St. John) when they first told me I was in an accident.”

Her family, including Gallagher’s fiance, Kirk, was then tasked with trying to help her remember what happened.

Doctors informed Gallagher that her spinal cord had been severed due to compression in the incident, adding that it was unlikely for her to walk again due to the severity of her injuries.

Injuries like Gallagher’s usually cause complete paralysis below a certain part of the body, with no sensations below that part, but Global News says Gallagher reacted after a needle was inserted into her leg during treatment.

“I flinched, and they’re like, ‘Whoa, can you feel that?’ And then I started getting movement back in my left leg in the hospital, and Kirk worked with me every day to try and help me move my legs around, get any movement back in them that I could,” Gallagher said.

Gallagher has been receiving regular physiotherapy treatments and completing exercises over the past month to “improve her locomotion.”

“It’s crazy the stuff you don’t think about, like how walking and moving your feet and everything is so natural until you can do it. And then now I have to think about every single muscle that I need to use to work my legs again,” she said.

Gallagher has recently begun working on taking steps backwards.

Her physiotherapists estimate that she will be able to walk with ankle braces and could potentially remove those supports in the future.