“I can still stand out even if I can’t stand up.”

These are the words of 27-year-old Danielle DeAngelis, who on Jan. 5 will compete in the Ms. Wheelchair Pennsylvania pageant in Erie.

A victory will earn her a crown and an automatic entry into the Ms. Wheelchair America pageant to be held next summer.

A future planned skids to a tragic stop

DeAngelis graduated from Jim Thorpe High School in 2010. She was attending Lehigh Carbon Community College aspiring to become an early childhood teacher.

On March 7, 2011, she was driving on Route 903 in Albrightsville, when her car skidded on a patch of ice, spun out of control and flipped completely over.

“I blacked out,” said DeAngelis. “They had to tell me what happened. In the hospital, the doctors told me that I severed two segments of my lumbar vertebrae in my spine. I was paralyzed from my hips down.”

Hitting rock bottom

Dealing with never being able to walk again led to a further fall in her life’s circumstances.

“My long-term relationship with someone I really cared about ended soon after he found out,” she recalled. “I was severely depressed and it lasted for a long, long time.”

DeAngelis spent months that turned into years “soul searching” as she called it.

“I really didn’t care if I lived to see another day.”

Then her family brought her a rescue center dog in 2014, a boxer she named Mishea, and immediately there was a bonding with the boxer said the daughter of Cindy and Peter DeAngelis.

“I found a purpose, and that was to take care of my dog,” she said.

On Nov. 23, Mishea died suddenly of a heart attack.

“My life has been filled with wave after wave of depression,” she explained. “I have been trying to rebuild my self-esteem and it’s been difficult at times.”

‘Standing’ up for herself

There were a few good days between the bad ones. She took up a hobby of painting scenery that was therapeutic and relaxing.

“I started to fight back to find myself again.”

Life and time moved on for DeAngelis. Her first big “step” toward independence was getting a car fully equipped with handicap accessibility and operation. Hand controls, a transfer board and a collapsible wheelchair allowed her to “leave and go” as she put it.

“Getting back to driving was a real high for me, but I still have what you might call PTSD and a certain anxiety because of my accident that day.”

She loves the spontaneity of traveling to visit friends whom she said give her “good energy.”

Becoming a voice for the disabled

After therapy sessions that required hourlong trips to Allentown, DeAngelis decided to take another “step.”

She applied and was accepted to become a candidate for the Ms. Wheelchair Pennsylvania pageant. Promoters of the program distinctly state that the competition is not a beauty contest from the outside, but a beauty contest from the inside.

“I have decided to create a platform of ideas to improve mobility for the disabled,” she said. “I will have to give a short bio and a two-minute speech to impress the judges.”

DeAngelis thinks of the town of Jim Thorpe to help her develop her platform.

“There are many shops there that have steps up, which make them inaccessible to wheelchairs. Then the handicap parking spots are too narrow for people who have to exit and enter their vehicles with wheelchairs.”

“Even if I don’t win the competition, this opportunity will be an awesome experience for me and then I will put my efforts into making changes in my hometown.”

Becoming me again

DeAngelis says her life now is an open book. Like any who have suffered permanent paralysis, she holds faith that someday she will walk again, but for now she has accepted her life the way it is.

She’s gotten used to the stares people give her when she navigates her wheelchair in public and she’s open for anyone to ask what happened to her.

“Come talk to me,” she said. “I want people to know I’m just like everyone else.”

She is excited to be an advocate for the disabled at the Ms. Wheelchair Pennsylvania event, or as she puts it, “I want to change the disabled world.”

She has come full circle since the accident and has restored belief in herself. “You only get one life and you have to make the best of it.”

DeAngelis has a favorite quotation by Dr. Seuss that she lives by from this day forward.

“Why fit in, when you were born to stand out.”