Valrico woman who fell off cliff improves

Family members of a 2003 Bloomingdale High School graduate who survived two tours of duty in Iraq say Sophia Canino is winning a war that began 19 days ago at the bottom of a rocky cliff.

The young woman's father, Luis Canino, said his daughter was hiking with friends around waterfalls in South Carolina on May 27 when the group tried to take a photo on the edge of a cliff. His daughter lost her footing and tumbled 150 feet onto the rocks below, he said.

"She's still fighting for her life, but she's made a tremendous amount of progress," Luis Canino said Monday by phone from Greenville Memorial Hospital. "She's going to make it."

Less than three weeks ago, Chelo Canino held her sister's hand at the hospital while a priest delivered the last rites.

Since then, the former Army corporal, discharged from active duty in 2009 and serving in the Army Reserve at the time of the accident, has undergone numerous surgeries.

Her pelvis was fractured in six places. She needed 50 units of blood, and had to be revived twice.

Surgeons opened her abdomen and pulled her internal organs aside until they could stabilize her.

"There was so much bleeding and inflammation, they had to keep her organs outside of her body for five days," her father said.

Canino remains in intensive care, but doctors recently delivered a critical piece of hope for the family.

"There is no spine damage, and no brain damage," her father said. "There will be a lot of therapy, but they say she can make a full recovery in about a year and a half."

On Sunday, Chelo Canino wrote in an online journal, "So finally my sister is breathing on her own! It was so nice to see her talking and have a glimpse of the Sophy we all know. She is without question feisty."

Canino will eventually be transferred to James A. Haley Veterans' Hospital in Tampa for further treatment. Meanwhile, the family has contacted U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Palm Harbor, to ask him for help to make sure that she will have veterans' medical coverage.

To view her sister's online journal, go to www .caringbridge.org/visit/ sophiacanino.