Following a brutal accident, she rallied to be a track star

April Holmes is an athlete - a premier sprinter, a world champion in her field.

Those facts alone do little to paint a true portrait of the statuesque 33-year-old from Somerdale, Camden County. While standing among the Philadelphia area's most esteemed athletes - among them Ryan Howard, Steve Slaton and Mike Rozier - Holmes was deemed the most courageous of them all by the Philadelphia Sports Writers Association last night.

To understand why the former track standout at Camden High and Norfolk State University received the Most Courageous Athlete Award at the writers' 103d annual dinner at the Crowne Plaza in Cherry Hill, one had to see not only the victories, the trophies and the ribbons.

Far more important than her on-track achievements are the riches she gives to those around her every day, and every step she takes to do so.

Every step, that is, since Jan. 23, 2001, when Holmes slipped while attempting to board a SEPTA train at 30th Street Station, falling into the path of an unforgiving, 40-ton train car.

When the metal wheels severed Holmes' left foot at her ankle, she could have curled up, given up.

She could have succumbed during the torturous 30 minutes it took for rescuers to free her.

She could have surrendered the fateful moment when doctors at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania deemed it necessary to amputate her leg below the left knee.

Holmes did not give in to those moments any more than she surrenders to the stereotype of the helpless invalid.

"Sure, your life changes, but I don't want people to treat me like I'm handicapped," she said.

And why should they when she did not from the moment reality hit her as she lay in her hospital bed?

Give up?

"Don't lay here like you're dead; if you're dead, you'd be dead," Holmes recalls thinking.

Rather, Holmes felt fortunate - to be alive. "If being blessed is a fortune, then I am fortunate," the serious, soft-spoken woman said.

Holmes used that spirit not only to survive, but, with the help of a prostheses and a dream, to thrive. She became what she'd always wanted to be - a person of stature in athletics.

Holmes did that by reviving her career, this time as a sprinter in competitions for athletes with disabilities.

She took to her new calling so quickly that she won a silver medal at the 2002 World Championships. Now a renowned Paralympian, she holds the world records for her classification in the 100, 200 and 400 meters.

In 2004, Holmes won a bronze medal in the long jump at the Paralympics even though it was only the second time she had competed in the event.

Last year, Holmes won two gold medals at the World Championships in the Netherlands.

Holmes, who trains in Southern California with her coach, former Olympic gold medal winner Al Joyner, cannot say whether she is necessarily courageous.

"I'm April, that's all I know," she said at a news conference before the writers' dinner. "But I was born with faith, born with courage, I guess."

More important, on that otherwise grim January day, she was reborn, not only with a will to proceed with her goal but to share what she called a "game plan" for such success with others.

To that end, Holmes has worked with people with disabilities. In 2002, she established the April Holmes Foundation to aid the learning and physically challenged.

"I don't go around with the intention that everyone should be an athlete," Holmes said. "But if I can motivate you to bend down and tie your shoes where you couldn't do that yesterday, then I've succeeded in doing something."