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Cameron, niece of Ottawa Senators coach Dave Cameron, was in a quiet room next to the accessible suburban Toronto gym where she trains. Her service animal, a gentle 5½-year-old black lab named Fido, was on the floor by her feet.

“If he’s someone who had that big of a problem, that he turns to alcohol, like, look at me, look at my support system, look at my family, look at my potential, look at all that stuff,” she said. “I know I’m luckier than he is.”

Next month will mark the five-year anniversary of the collision. Cameron was working as an assistant coach with the Mercyhurst College women’s hockey team, in Erie, Pa., when she was injured, leaving her with movement in her shoulders, parts of her upper back, her biceps and wrists. She was also pursuing her master’s degree.

Five years later, she is still pursuing that master’s degree — there is a paper she means to finish, eventually — and she is still involved in sports. Cameron, the product of a famous hockey family from Prince Edward Island, is aiming to make Canada’s wheelchair rugby team in time for the Summer Paralympics next year in Rio de Janeiro.

“Sometimes, it’s like, ‘How do they let quadriplegics go out there and bang into everyone, and bang into each other with big metal wheelchairs?’” she said with a smile. “But it’s such a great sport because it’s complex, which is what I like about it.”

The sport is also known, perhaps more widely, as Murderball.

“I guess we all have to be a little bit crazy to go and bang into each other,” she said. “But it’s so much fun.”