When Paralympic athlete Stef Reid steps on to the rink on Dancing On Ice, she won’t allow herself to think about the childhood skating accident that left her husband paralysed for life.
Stef, whose dad is from Glasgow, is married to Canadian wheelchair racer Brent Lakatos, who was left paralysed at the age of six in a freak ice skating accident.
Stef, 36, who lost her leg in a boating accident as a teenager, has had a new prosthetic leg designed to help her ice skate.
She said her family’s Scottish grit and determination will steer her through the TV competition against stars including Coronation Street actress Sally Dynevor and professional dancer Brendan Cole.
Long-jumper Stef, who is a para-lympic silver medallist, said: “Both Brent and I were involved in freak accidents when we were growing up.
“Brent was on the ice, he took a tumble and everyone thought he was OK. He went home and as time went on he realised he couldn’t move his legs.
“It turned out his fall had caused the equivalent of an aneurysm on his spine. The blood pooled and caused permanent damage.
“A clot that formed ended up travelling up his body, went into his lungs and he couldn’t breathe. He was lucky to survive.
“When I told Brent I was going to take part in Dancing On Ice, he told me I was nuts – absolutely crazy – but his reaction had nothing to do with his accident.
“Neither Brent nor I live our lives worrying about the bad things that could happen. We’ve been through bad things and it’s made us all the more determined to live our lives to the full.
“He’s never voiced any concern that I’m going to be doing all these things on the ice and I won’t be thinking about his accident when I go out to skate.”
Stef, who has been paired with professional ice dancer Andy Buchanan, is in training for the new series of Dancing On Ice, which begins on January 16.
She’s even keen to do the show’s most terrifying move – The Headbanger – which involves being swung by her feet with her head only inches from the ice.
She said: “Andy’s worried my artificial leg may come off. I’ve told him there’s a great vacuum system that means it’s really tough to yank it off – but he says it’s a no for now.
“He has a variation of the headbanger for us to do, so I’m waiting to see what he has come up with.”
Stef, who grew up in Canada but competes for Scottish Athletics, suffered her life-changing accident at the age of 15.
She had been enjoying watersports with friends on a lake near Toronto when she was struck by the propeller of a speedboat, whose driver hadn’t seen her in the water.
She said: “I actually thought I’d been cut in half. It was really scary because we were in the middle of nowhere and there was a lot of blood loss.”
Stef was taken to hospital where she had life-saving surgery.
When she came round from the operation, she was told the surgeons had been unable to save her lower right leg.
But Stef refused to allow her disability to define her and took up para-sport while studying biochemistry at university.
Excelling as a para-athlete, she won her first paralympic medal at the Beijing Games in 2008, when she claimed bronze for Canada in the T44 200m.
She switched teams to compete for Great Britain and has since attended three more Paralympics, winning a silver medal in the long jump at both the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Games.
She met Brent while racing for Canada and the couple married in 2008.
Outside of sport, Stef has built a successful career as a model, broadcaster and motivational speaker and was a semi-finalist on Celebrity MasterChef.
Stef, who lives near Lough-borough University in England where both she and Brent train, said: “Dancing – or doing anything – on ice is the last thing you would expect an amputee to do.
“I knew so little about skating that I had no idea how hard it would be and I found the first few weeks of training really tough.
“At first I felt my goal was to not fall over but I quickly realised that was stupid. I had to accept I was going to fall a lot and that’s how my brain was going to learn.
“Being a long-jumper, I’m an incredibly gifted faller – which has come in so handy. I know how to launch myself at full speed into a sandpit and not hurt myself.
“I have to keep telling the skating coaches on the show that I’m used to landing hard and that, just because I have an artificial leg, I’m not made of cotton candy or glass.”
Stef admits her skill at skating started to greatly improve after receiving a new leg she had designed specifically for
skating by prosthetist Richard Nieveen.
She said: “As soon as I knew I was on the show, I called Richard up and said, ‘Guess what? I need a skating leg.’
“He was like, ‘This is awesome. What do you need from a skating leg?’ And I had to tell him I had no idea. That was in September and since then we’ve tried about four different variations of leg until we hit on the one I got at the start of December, which works well.”
Stef said her family are looking forward to seeing her on the show, including her mum Carol and dad Philip.
She said: “My dad is a very proud Scot. When Brent and I got married in Canada, we had a piper, my dad wore a Robertson tartan kilt and he even presented Brent with a tartan ‘Jimmy’ hat to welcome him into the family.
“I’ve inherited a lot of traits from my dad – including being hard-working, determined, having belief in yourself and being an optimist.
“On paper I’m probably the least likely competitor to win Dancing On Ice. I’m a novice skater, novice dancer,
novice performer and, on top of it all, I’ve got an artificial leg – so it’s not looking good. But I don’t care what the odds are. I’ll
still do the hard work to be the best I can be and hopefully inspire others.
“I’m going to give my absolute all and hope to do Scotland proud.”
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