Canadian goalkeeper Rylee Foster returns to top football after a near-death crash

While on a break with friends in Finland, Foster was on her way to a Drake concert when she was involved in a car accident. Foster was sitting in the middle of the back seat as one of four passengers in the car and was ejected through the windshield when her seat belt malfunctioned.

“It was almost like all the stars aligned and then my world came crashing down on me,” Foster said. “I started getting more minutes at Liverpool. Taking over the number 1 (goalkeeper) spot was a fact. The national team became a permanent fixture for me. I kind of knew that I would be called to camp because my performance was very good.

“For this to happen was exactly the wrong time and the worst thing possible for me. Because everything I had worked for was within my reach. But then I lost it.”

Foster suffered the worst injuries in the car. She was left with seven fractures to her neck, two lower back fractures, a broken cheekbone, a malaligned jaw and a partially torn jaw. medial collateral ligament in the knee, partially torn quadriceps tendon and subdural hematoma in the back of her head.

“I remember the beginning of the crash and the feeling of it, but after that I have no idea what happened,” she said.

“All I know is that my seat belt was on and my ribcage and my lungs had the evidence to show for it,” she added.

It was a long, hard journey back, which started with wearing a halo on her head for months.

“Absolute hell,” she said.

She also suffered from concussions and had to work through depression.

Foster credits Liverpool and an army of doctors and physios for helping her, as well as her family. Her younger sister Mackie essentially put her life on hold to aid Foster’s recovery and spent six months in Liverpool.

“You just went into fight or flight mode and I just fought for everything,” Foster said. “Looking back on it now, the mental resilience was definitely there – to go through the rehabilitation that took six hours a day for 13 months… It’s all the hard work that paid off just to get me here to get.”

When she returned to training, the constant diving aggravated a shoulder injury she suffered in the crash, requiring surgery to repair a torn labrum.

Even she admits her return to top flight football is ‘absolutely insane’.

“I can’t even put into words how miraculous this recovery has been. And to be able to tolerate it now is amazing,” she said.

In July 2023, some 636 days after the accident, she was cleared to play football again. She needed a club, with Liverpool choosing not to exercise the option of a one-year extension when her contract expired in June.

“To hear that they never thought I would be the same again was a pretty tough pill to swallow,” Foster said.

Playing for the Reds was a dream come true for Foster. Her grandparents came from the Wavertree area of ​​Liverpool and Foster has ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, the title of Liverpool’s famous anthem, tattooed on her arm.

But she says Liverpool’s decision to let her go pushed her to prove them wrong.

Foster had a try-out with Scottish side Celtic, who offered her a contract before withdrawing and signing a new ‘keeper. Subsequently, New Zealand’s Wellington Phoenix FC, which plays in the Australian A-League, signed her in September 2023.

She emptied her storage space in Liverpool and her flat in Glasgow ‘and moved all over the world.’

“The fact that I’m still alive is phenomenal,” Foster said at the time. “The injury I sustained has been known to kill you instantly, or even become a tetraplegic, which Christopher Reeve was.

“Participating in the Phoenix is ​​very symbolic. It is a new becoming. It was created from something that was literally in ashes.”

Foster made her return on 14 October 2023, in a 1–0 defeat to Melbourne City, 731 days since her last appearance. She played 19 games for Wellington before leaving as a free agent after the 2023-2024 season.

“For me it was about getting playing time, building my confidence and just getting experience again after what happened to me,” she said of her time Down Under. “Honestly, I loved playing there.”

In September she signed a short-term contract with Everton until January 2025, where she will support Irish international Courtney Brosnan.

“Of course I want playing time, but I know I have to earn my stripes back,” said Foster. “I have to work my way back up the rankings… But to be here is an absolute honor.”

Today, Foster has no problem driving as she feels like she is in control of the car. But as a passenger she becomes carsick, a remnant of the accident.

‘I can get into a car. I just don’t feel great.” she said.

Foster has the numbers 10-16 tattooed on her right bicep. That is the date of the car accident and, coincidentally, the exact time the emergency response team was called.

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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 31, 2024.

Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press