From ICU to Team Canada: Zak’s Story

Zak Madell, left, with Jim Roberts from Team Great Britain at the 2020 Paralympic Games in Tokyo.

One of the first – and sickest – patients to move into the ‘new’ Alberta Children’s Hospital reflects on 20 years of care, community and possibility

At 10 years old, Zak Madell was in intensive care at the old Alberta Children’s Hospital with no pulse, no blood pressure and machines helping to keep him alive. Few could have predicted such a sick boy would one day represent Canada as one of the world’s biggest stars in wheelchair rugby.

“It is wild to think I was one of the sickest children in the city, to get to a point where I’m competing on the international stage and travelling the world to play a sport I love,” he says.

Today, Zak is 32, living in Victoria and working for the Canadian Paralympic Committee after a wheelchair rugby career that took him around the world.

And like many people marking the 20th birthday of the “new” Alberta Children’s Hospital, he’s been thinking about that big, beautiful building on the hill, what it’s meant to him and how it shaped – and twice saved – his life.

Zak’s journey began in October 2004, when he was 10. While visiting his family’s cabin near Vulcan, he became critically ill with a staph infection. With a snowstorm grounding aircraft, a donor-funded emergency response team came from Calgary to transport him back to Calgary where he could get the specialized care he urgently needed.

A young Zak Madell gets a special visit from the Calgary Roughnecks at the Alberta Children’s Hospital.

He spent about six months as an inpatient at the old Alberta Children’s Hospital, undergoing repeated operations and intensive treatment. Specialists fought to keep him alive, a fight for survival that would ultimately claim his fingers and lower legs. As he grew, he continued returning for surgeries and care.

In September 2006, Zak was back in hospital for another procedure, just as an entire city was prepping for one of the most important and remarkable days in the hospital’s history: A massive, coordinated patient transfer from the old hospital to its new location. Hospital staff, paramedics and emergency crews choreographed the move so every patient could arrive quickly and safely, a day that’s fondly remembered by Calgarians who witnessed it.

Designed to feel brighter, warmer and more like home

Zak recalls his first impression of the new hospital because the contrast was so vivid.

“It literally was night and day,” he says.

At the old hospital, Zak spent much of his time in a room without exterior windows. At the new hospital, he had a large window overlooking the river valley, access to outdoor space and a building designed to feel brighter, more colourful and more welcoming for children and families.

For Zak and so many families, the hospital itself is a reflection of a community that has stood behind children’s health — from helping make its construction possible to supporting the many programs, services and spaces that make it feel more child-friendly for kids like him.

A few years later, Zak would make an “unexpected appearance” in the ICU after a cardiac incident.

He often jokes how he’s cheated death twice: “I’m on my third life. I have some cat in me, I think.”

Even with everything he endured, Zak’s memories of growing up in the old and ‘new’ hospital are coloured with gratitude and connection.

“It was all such a positive experience, given the circumstances. Because of the incredible care and support that we received at the Alberta Children’s Hospital, I have mostly positive and fond memories.” – Zak Madell

Over the years, he built relationships with nurses, therapists, photographers, spiritual care providers and others in the hospital community. Some became friends.

For Zak, those connections helped transform an extraordinarily difficult chapter into something he remembers with warmth.

“Really made it a special experience as much as it was obviously a pretty major life event.”

Today, Zak looks back on the full journey with perspective.

After competing for Canada in wheelchair rugby, including at the Paralympic Games, Zak retired from competition following the 2024 Paralympics. He now works with the Canadian Paralympic Committee, helping support athletes and create opportunities for the next generation.

In many ways, his life today reflects what he believes Alberta Children’s Hospital gave him all those years ago.

“I think I have the staff to thank for being as healthy as I am today physically, but especially mentally,” he says. “Coming out with still a positive attitude and a smile on my face and fond memories to go with that, things that I’ll never forget in my lifetime.”

Zak Madell with his girlfriend, Sally, on summer vacation in Sooke, B.C.