Ex-skiing school instructor turned French gourmet chef, Nicole Benzakin said of her life before all this started: "Skiing was everything I loved. It even seemed more important than friends. Skiing felt like being in the clouds... It was like being with the angels -- with God." Within two years of leaving her roots in France for the United States, Nicole found herself in Sugarbush, Vermont and picked up skiing. She was good enough to be told by Stein Erickson (Downhill Skiing Gold Metal Winner), "Young girl, go west -- get your certification," and within another year she had became a skiing instructor. She was in heaven teaching all day and working all night.

Then, in the winter of 1972, something happened that would irreversibly change her life.. That was the day of her fateful skiing accident. She was guiding a beginner's class along a powdery slope and moving fast.. In the split-second it took to look back to make sure everyone feeling secure behind her, the tip of her ski hit an icy mogul hidden under the snow and she lost her balance and fell. After hitting the ice, her head was thrown back and smashed into a tree. Her knee buckled under her weight as she tried to stand. She had shattered her knee cap into many pieces. That was the beginning -- the beginning of what she now calls 'a long downhill ride'... "

The big problems started with the injury to her knee. The doctors said they had never seen such a damaged knee cap. She went from one surgery to the next trying to restore it.. In the process, Nicole had cartilage removed, tendons transferred, and screws placed on her kneecap to hold it down. Somewhere inside, Nicole knew that she was not going to be crippled -- that everything was going to be okay.

Nicole also used to compete in downhill ski races. She liked other sports too. "In the summer I would play tennis, swim, ride horse back, hike -- everything that had to do with sports. And in the winter I would go skiing and ice climbing. And coming from that type of life, you can Imagine," she says as her voice trails off, "in just one day I became powerless in a bed." It took her about five or six surgeries to take it seriously." With each surgery she went back to work or went skiing and barely paid attention to her injuries. Nicole was deluding herself, "When you're a downhill skier you will do anything for fun in the snow, and you can take the pain with it." But this time, when the doctor told her she could be crippled for the rest of her life, she decided to take it seriously.

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