Young burn victim reveals inspirational journey to success

A former model and aspiring actress had her life turned upside down when a freak accident left her severely burned and brought her glamorous career to an abrupt end.

Sammy Veall, from Victoria, refused to be defeated, and in just a few short years, she was able to turn the tragedy into something positive through a surprising form of therapy.

“I think the accident did change my life but I also changed my own life – it could’ve gone either way,” she said.

The 25-year-old is the business owner and teacher of Yoga213 – a Melbourne based studio that specialises in hip hop yoga, and is the first of its kind in Australia.

The young entrepreneur launched the studio in March 2013, after she discovered the style while chasing an acting career in Los Angeles.

Ms Veall loved the fusion of yoga and hip hop so much, she quit her acting dream and committed herself to practising and teaching it instead.

It was at her first class that she met Steve Ross, the founder of hip hop yoga and former band member of ‘80s Australian rock band, Men at Work.

With 40 years of yoga experience, Mr Ross became both professional and personal mentor to the ingenue.

“I think I was lucky in meeting Steve,” she said.

“He was seriously the one that made me happy again and able to do something like this.”

At the time, the Bonds Australia model was struggling to recover from a serious accident aged 21, that left her with burns to 35 per cent of her body.

Ms Veall was living in New York and studying acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, where she had secured a two-year visa.

Three months into the course, she came home for what was supposed to be a two-week visit, and attended a friend’s 21st birthday party.

The party started winding down around 3am and Ms Veall was sitting around a bonfire that was dying out, when a friend decided to throw petrol on it.

The fire exploded in her direction and she was engulfed in flames.

“I just remember it flashing up in my face,” she said.

“It burnt all my hair off.”

The drama student suffered third degree burns to her back, stomach, sides and legs.

“I put my face out with my hand so my hand was burnt but it healed,” she said.

“I feel very lucky not to have been burnt on my face.”

Ms Veall spent more than a month in hospital where she underwent four skin graph operations, including one behind the back of her knee that left her with a limp.

It was an incredibly tough time for the burn victim who said it was ‘the love from her family’ that helped her through the ordeal.

“The toughest thing is actually getting out because you kind of just have to deal with it,” she said.

“When you’re in hospital, you’re on medication and everyone is visiting you but when you get out, you have to deal with reality.”

After high hopes of a career in the entertainment industry, the would-be actress faced an uncertain future.

Despite the difficulties, she feels that the accident changed her life for the better.

“I’m a stronger person,” she said.

Ms Veall believes that yoga helped her physically, not only because of the health benefits, but it also stretched out her skin grafts and she was able to regain the balance she lost from her injuries.

“I was limping for quite a while so that, to me, was a huge thing,” she said.

It also helped emotionally by allowing her to come to terms with the scars on her body and to let go of insignificant issues.

“I don’t worry as much as I used to,” she said.

“I now know that everything passes because I got through such a hard time.

“In that moment, I was thinking that I was always going to be this upset because I was quite depressed when I was in hospital, and now that I’ve come out of it, I’ve just realised that everything does pass and I don’t get caught up in any issues.

“No matter how big it actually is, I never worry about it anymore.”

Along with her mentor and yoga guru, Mr Ross, Ms Vealle said her father is her biggest inspiration.

She has a tattoo etched onto her upper arm saying: ‘To be happy’, which is her father’s philosophy in life – doing everything that makes you happy.

“If it doesn’t make you happy, just drop it completely,” she said.

This focus on happiness is what drives Ms Veall to help her students achieve a similar state through hip hop yoga.

“We make the classes fun so people fall in love with yoga through the music, which is something that modern age people can relate to,” she said.

Combining smooth flowing vinyasa yoga with the booming beats of hip hop music may seem like a strange contradiction, but the passionate yoga instructor believes the ‘happy tunes’ fuse well together and create a more laid-back environment than traditional classes.

“You can boogie as you move,” she said.

“They’re the type of songs that come on when you’re out at a bar and make you want to dance.”

She also finds the classes ‘emotionally amazing’ and can help stressed out souls to let go of their worries.

“If you’ve had a really bad day or you’re feeling tired and you come to a class, you’ll leave so energised,” she said.

“You become a lighter person.

“When you get depressed and are having a hard time, you can actually feel your body get heavy, and that’s why the hunching and stuff happens.”

Ms Veall runs donation classes on Fridays for Beyond Blue, the not-for-profit organisation dedicated to increasing awareness of depression and anxiety in Australia, and has already raised $10K since opening her studio.

“I’ve had a couple of friends who have taken their lives over the years and have battled with depression myself after the accident, so I knew as soon as I opened, that was what I wanted to do,” she said.

The fresh-faced yoga devotee is also the ambassador for Diabetes Australia in Victoria, and has modelled for Cotton On Body during one of their active wear campaigns.

She will soon be modelling her own line of yoga clothing called 213 Apparel, which she helped design.

Her advice for aspiring entrepreneurs is to ‘let your passion drive you’.

“If you’re really passionate about something and you love it as much as I love hip hop yoga, and what it did for me, then I think based off that, it’ll work 100 per cent,” she said.

She also suggests ‘not to think too much’ because you can scare yourself out of it.

“That’s probably my naive, young side talking but if you don’t think about it too much, I think it can work,” she said.

“I never had failure or anything like that ever in my mind.

“I didn’t think of what would happen if it didn’t work because I knew that it would.

“Work really hard, be super passionate about what you’re doing, and just get on with it.”

Wise words from an inspirational young woman who managed to turn tragedy into triumph.

News break – March 27