By Victoria Gaither
Stefanie Schaffer is exceptional, not because she survived an accident in the Bahamas that left her a bilateral amputee, but because she has the guts and determination that only a person who suffered such a personal loss can turn into strength.
The Rutland resident wrote her memoir, “Without any Warning: Casualties of A Caribbean Vacation,” and on March 29 will hold her official book event at a space inside Roots the Restaurant in Rutland. (The event had been scheduled for March 1, but was postponed.)
“I decided to write this book for a few different reasons,” Schaffer said. “For myself, it was difficult having lived through these experiences and feeling alone with them in my head. How I went from being on a dream vacation to then one day, a month later, waking up in an ICU room having spent the last four weeks in a coma.”
Schaffer went on her family’s dream vacation to the Bahamas in June of 2018. Without warning, her tour boat exploded, leaving nine people injured and one dead. Schaffer suffered broken bones and internal bleeding and had her legs amputated.
After months of hospital visits, surgeries, pain, ups and downs, learning how to walk again, laughing and crying, she finally learned to stop asking why this happened to her. Visitors came to see her at a Boston hospital, they were survivors of the Boston Marathon bombing.
“They knew what I was going through,” she explained, feeling bad on that day. “They told me to stop asking why me? Or I would never be able to move on, and that question would keep me trapped.”
She’s free now and ready to educate the public on how the legal system in the Bahamas failed her and what happens when your dream vacation goes terrible.
“There is a message of general awareness of what I faced as an American tourist, how there are faults in their systems, as well as a legal system that seemed designed to work against me,” Schaffer said.
The 25-year-old also hopes her memoir inspires others.
“I hope people see that no matter what might happen to us in life, that we are in control of how we respond and react and what we make of it,” Schaffer said. “And that these responses are far more important than any event in our life.”
Schaffer is getting her message out to over 9,000 followers on her Instagram page, where she shows what it’s like living as an amputee, traveling, and going about her day-to-day life.
When asked how the Rutland community helped, she said: “I seriously would not be where I am without the support of this area. It’s quite a privilege to live somewhere where people are invested like this and care like this.”
To learn more about her local book events, visit steffindsnewroads.com.
