The former NWT teacher's ears were torn, her hair jerked out, vertebrae broken in three places and ribs cracked when the truck rolled down a steep driveway in Quebec.

Ross later received a recall notice from Ford Motor Company because of a problem with the parking brake. She claimed in a court action that she had taken the truck in several times for the brake to be fixed.

At first glance, it looked like she had a good case to sue for damages. But it didn't work out that way.

Ross was visiting her other home in North Hatley, Que., when the accident happened in 1994.

"I thought somebody hit me with a baseball bat," Ross said in a phone interview from North Hatley. It was, in fact, the open door of her truck that hit her, knocking her under the rolling truck.

Before the accident, she competed in triathlons and taught physical education and math in Wrigley, Broughton Island, Fort Smith and Fort Resolution for nine years. She still owns a home in Fort Smith.

Ross says she lay unconscious in a ditch for four hours after the accident. Today, one leg is shorter than the other and she is two inches shorter.

But she can still lift weights, which she did for 19 years before her accident. And she can still manage 500 sit-ups at a session.

In a way, Ross has lived a charmed life, considering her brushes with death. She was once hit by lightning and rolled a vehicle while driving between Hay River and Fort Resolution.

Teacher Jim Crowell in Fort Smith recalls Ross, saying she broke the gender barrier by playing in the oldtimers hockey league.

Principal Denrick Richardson in Fort Resolution, meanwhile, says Ross was always willing to help people.

He remembers that Ross once went on leave to look after an elderly, sick man and was to come back to the school to teach. "She was quite friendly and people were close to her. She always put people's needs before herself," Richardson says.

Ross says she was brought up not to complain about pain and says, "I'm doing OK." But at 48, she does worry about how much suffering lies ahead.

For that reason she sued Ford Motor Company and the Hay River dealership that sold her the truck, Kingland Ford Mercury Sales Ltd.

Under Quebec's no-fault public insurance scheme, her lawsuit against Ford was rejected, so she had to settle for 85 per cent of one year's wages from the Quebec auto insurance system.

Since Ross bought the truck in Hay River, she also launched a lawsuit in the NWT. But in a recent NWT Supreme Court decision, Ross lost her bid for further compensation.

Justice John Vertes ruled that since Quebec law prohibited her from suing there, she couldn't sue here either.

Today Ross does menial jobs, cleaning floors and cleaning senior citizens in a nursing home in Quebec.