Before the devastating traffic accident in 2000 that left her a paraplegic, the trajectory of Ann Yoshida’s life seemed reassuringly normal.

A graduate of Mililani High School, Yoshida had been studying human biology at Brigham Young University. She had friends, a job and a set of goals that were entirely within her reach.

Following the accident, having emerged from a monthlong induced coma, her brain seriously traumatized and her lower extremities paralyzed by loss of blood to the spinal column, Yoshida found her future altered in ways she could never have predicted.

“If I wasn’t injured, I might not have done everything I’ve done since then,” she said.

Yoshida is in North Carolina this week, training for what promises to be one of the extraordinary experiences of her life. In two weeks she will depart for Rio de Janeiro, where she will participate in the first-ever paracanoe kayak event of the Paralympic Games.

Yoshida had always led an active life. Growing up, she enjoyed surfing, swimming, golf and gymnastics. In high school she was part of a color guard squad that twice won the state championship. Still, she never envisioned herself competing among the best athletes in the world in any sport.

But then a driver ran a stop sign and crashed his vehicle into the side of the car in which Yoshida was riding, and none of her old understandings of herself applied any longer.

Yoshida credits incremental goal setting, innumerable days of intensive therapy and slow, methodical rebuilding of her physical and psychological capabilities with providing her the strength to accomplish bigger, more audacious goals for herself.

“Everything I do is quite hard initially, but I keep doing it day after day until it becomes routine and then easy,” she said.

Over the course of her recovery, Yoshida has progressed from relearning how to get out of bed to resuming her life as a surfer. Along the way she’s taken up numerous adaptive sports, including rock climbing and horseback riding; completed a bachelor’s degree in audiology and speech pathology and a master’s in rehabilitation counseling; enrolled in a doctoral program in occupational therapy; and spent several years teaching at Far East University in South Korea.

Yoshida is relatively new to paddling but has advanced quickly in team and solo competition. She’ll arrive in Rio as the first Native Hawaiian woman to compete in a Paralympic paracanoe event.

“If I focus on being normal, I exclude the possibility of being extraordinary,” she said.

Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@staradvertiser.com.