Woman Fights Back From Jet Ski Accident, Cancer

A local woman recovering from a serious jet ski accident found out she also had cancer.

NewsChannel5's Alicia Booth reported on how Nan Reilly is now fighting back from both injury and illness.

Reilly's painful journey began simply enough on a jet ski on Lake Erie during Labor Day Weekend 2005.

A family friend lost control of her jet ski and ran over Reilly and her daughter.

"All I could do is just grab Laura and pull her off with one arm, and try to push the boat off with the other arm, and the boat came right up over me," said Reilly.
"She says, 'Steve I'm going to die,' and she kind of rolled over on her back and just went out," said Reilly's husband, Steve.

But Reilly didn't die. Her chest and much of what was inside it had been crushed, but the doctors and nurses and MetroHealth Medical Center managed to save her.

After months of recovery, the Reillys thought the worst was over.

When NewsChannel5 talked to Reilly last September, she had no idea she was battling yet another threat to her life.

On one of the many CT scans taken while Reilly was fighting to stay alive, someone at Metro happened to notice something nowhere near her injuries.

"It wouldn't be unusual to ignore this, especially given the fact that she has so many other life-threatening issues," said Metro's Dr. Christopher McHenry.

McHenry said a radiologist spotted a little abnormality on Reilly's thyroid and made note of it.

Her doctors didn't forget about it once she had healed, and it?s a good thing they didn't: Reilly had cancer of the thyroid.

Reilly immediately had her thyroid removed, underwent radiation treatment and got right back to her life of taking care of the kids and teaching pottery.

"I think she's a very, very strong woman for what she went through. I was very impressed with her resiliency," said McHenry.

Reilly's story makes one wonder: How much can one person take?

"That's what my friends say. I say, 'Oh, they keep throwing hurdles in front of me, I'm going over them,'" Reilly said. "I'm lucky, there's a lot of people that aren't as lucky as I am."

Reilly is feeling even luckier today. The results of a recent body scan confirmed that the cancer has not spread to other parts of her body.