Some women wear their hearts on their sleeve. I wear mine on my leg. 

I’m 39 now, but when I was 21 I took a step that would change my life forever. At my summer job at a paper mill, I put my foot on top of an unguarded conveyer belt. It would be the last step I would take with my left foot before the machinery mangled it. My leg had to be amputated below the knee.

My heart was broken. I was no longer the girl spending time contemplating what shoes to wear or skipping out the door in the morning after eating my dad’s banana pancakes. Instead I was  trying to choose a suitable foot to replace the one I had lost. 

I came as close as one could by way of a English gentleman called David. His eye would craft the look of my first custom designed high heeled limb. His hands would shape it. Though our time together was brief, his affection for me I would wear for the rest of my life by way of a tiny heart, disguised as a freckle on my left ankle. 

One of the best ways to show you care to the people you love is to come home safe.

I had my heart back. Rather than wasting my time looking for love in all the wrong places, I looked within. It wasn’t always easy. Ever since the incident, when looking in the mirror, what was missing was all I had been able to see. But I also came to see that what happened to me was not a “freak accident.”  

Every day Canadians—young Canadians in particular—are losing lives and limbs at work. In 2015, the most recent year for official statistics,there were 852 workplace-related fatalities in Canada, according to the Canadian Center for Occupational Health and Safety. Among those dead were 15 workers under age 24.  

I deliberately don’t use the phrase “workplace accidents” because that implies these deaths could not have been prevented. Injuries in the workplace are preventable. So if we want to change our culture, we need to change our language and our approach. If we are going to eradicate these injuries in the workplace—and that is an achievable goal—companies and individuals need to accept responsibility.