Live. Fate Loves the Fearless

CrossFit saved Miranda Oldroyd’s life—literally.

In June 2012, the CrossFit Level 1 Seminar Staff member was involved in a terrible car accident. She remembers it vividly and wrote about it on her blog.

“I never lost consciousness,” she says, “but I was immediately in a ton of pain. I remember saying out loud, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK, you’re fine.’”

When she arrived at the emergency room, Oldroyd complained of significant neck pain.

“Several times I mentioned, ‘My neck hurts, my neck hurts,’” she recalls. “I asked if I needed an X-ray. (The doctor) seemed to think that it was just whiplash. They gave me a soft collar … and gave me a prescription for pain medicine and sent me on my way.”

The 2012 Reebok CrossFit Games were quickly approaching, and Oldroyd was excited to work for CrossFit Media as an on-camera personality. She worked the entire week interviewing athletes and hugging fans, all the while unaware of how bad her neck injury actually was.

When she got home from Carson, California, Oldroyd received life-changing news: Initially misdiagnosed, she was told she had been living with a broken neck for two weeks. Radiologist Dr. Will Wright cites Oldroyd’s fitness as the reason she made it through those weeks.

“She’s lucky she was a CrossFitter,” he says.

Oldroyd says several doctors told her the strength of the muscles around her neck actually prevented paralysis or death.

After spinal fusion, Oldroyd was told she could do activities that didn’t cause pain, so she was training again three days after surgery, using the movements that were available to her and chasing her dream of making it to the CrossFit Games.

“It’s a beautiful stubbornness about her,” says Oldroyd’s husband, Tyson.

In “Live. Fate Loves the Fearless,” filmmaker Heber Cannon tells the story of Miranda’s phenomenal recovery from an accident that could have claimed her life.

Video by Heber Cannon.

26min 24sec

Additional audio: CrossFit Radio Episode 274 by Justin Judkins, published May 3, 2013.