The Story of that Fateful Day

It was a beautiful sunny July morning in Ashland, Oregon.  I was busy cleaning up after making breakfast when my friend Tony called to go ride.  He had an ambitious plan to show his Uncle Jeff, visiting from LA, some of Southern Oregon’s finest mountain biking.  The plan was to meet up at noon at the bottom of Chuck’s Chips, shuttle Chuck’s a couple of times, and then go shuttle Mt Ashland a couple of times.  If all went well we would get about 15,000 vertical feet of some of the finest single track around.  As we made our way down the fire road we laughed and joke while we rode along oblivious to what the future held.

Ten minutes later we arrived at a double jump that signifies the start of the single track.  We pulled up to take a look and I decided I was going to give it a go.  I had done this jump many times before, but it had been modified since the last time.  Someone had made the ramps taller and steeper.  I rode back up the road turned around and started my approach.  The next thing I remember was the sound of a helicopter and then waking up in the ER at Providence Hospital with a nun in my face asking if there was someone they could call.  After my crash Tony called 911, EMS showed up after using the ‘Jaws of Life’ to get through the forest service gate to drive to where I was at, and then I was flown to Providence Hospital by mercy flights.

At some point the doctor came in with CT scans of my neck and then gave me the give the worst news I had ever heard.  He said I was paralyzed from the neck down and I would never walk again.  Then he said I had dislocated C6 and he needed to operate immediately or I might not make it.  As they wheeled me into surgery  I remember having the distinct thought that I didn’t really want to survive if I was going to lose the use of my legs.  The thought of never walking again was unbearable.  The last thing I remember before coming to in the Critical Care Unit is the doctor drilling a screw into the side of my skull, which was extremely painful. 

When I opened my eyes in the CCU the first thing I saw were my friends standing there with love and concern in their eyes.  At that moment I was happy to have survived the surgery and to still be alive!  Then I learned there were at least twenty people in the waiting room anxiously waiting to see if I was alright.  That moment has been forever burned into my memory has the best and worst memory of my life.  The worst memory because I had lost the use of my legs and my hyper active lifestyle had come to a screeching halt.  It was the best memory because I had discovered that I had an amazing group of friends.


Dramatically is such an inadequate word to describe how much my life changed in that moment.  One minute I’m ripping through the woods on my mountain bike and the next thing I know is that I’m waking up in the ER.  Since then life has been a daily struggle.  There is no area of my life that has not been affected.  Not so long ago I was exploring the remote peaks of the Trinity Alps looking for new lines to ski, kayaking over 60 foot waterfalls and now my outdoor adventures consist of rolling along a boardwalk at the beach.  I can’t even go to bathroom and bathe without assistance.  I went from being extremely independent to completely dependent in a moment.

The biggest challenge has been accepting my condition and making the most of each day while not giving up on the chance for a full recovery.  I’ve been attending Project Walk for the last couple of years.  I’ve made amazing progress and I’ll keep giving it my all as long as I have the support to do so!  For an injury as severe as mine it can take 5-10 years to fully recover.  So I have a long road ahead of me, but I’m as determined as ever.  Recovering from a Spinal Cord Injury is a team effort and luckily I have strong team.   Thank you for your support!!!!!

A Feature Length Documentary by Aaron Lewis:

"We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised  as impossible situations."  -Charles Swindoll