Wow, it has been a really long time since I have written. My summer has been one wild ride, and up until now I have been distracted by my injuries and the recovery process. Rehab is still a large part of my life, and I have a ways to go until I am 100%, but I cannot wait for this winter. I am confident that I will be able to shred harder than ever and my motivation is pushing me to work extremely hard everyday.
For those who don't know what happened to me, I was in a couple serious accidents. The first happened on April 26. I was filming a longboarding segment for a company called Jase Boards. It was a simple segment and I crashed doing a simple trick. I did not have a helmet on at the time (I always wear helmets) and I got off balance and flipped 180ยบ straight to the back of my head. I cannot remember any of this, but the kid I was filming with took me to the hospital in Logan, UT and from there I was transported to a neurosurgeon Ogden. I suffered from basal and temporal skull fractures, a serious concussion, and a traumatic brain injury. This happened right before finals week so I missed every single final, but the professors all excused me and I passed every class. weeeooooo!!
I had a long first week in and out of the ER, but after about 6 weeks I was feeling really good. So I decided that it would be fine for me to do some speedflights with my brother (who I taught how to fly during my recovery). We flew 5 times over a couple days, and then on June 8th we hiked Lookout Mountain behind our house with our good friends Andrew McKean, Will Burks, Miles Daisher, Sean Chuma, and Marco Poko. Once again, I do not remember any of this; the info is all from talking to those who were there. I was flying Will's Bobcat 15, which I did not like to fly because it was super "rolly" and I was not used to how it flew. After taking off I decided to crank some big turns and since I was not used to the wing, I made way too big of a turn and dropped over 100ft and then got "locked-in" the next turn. This slammed me into the mountain really, really, hard. I have no idea how fast I was going, but it had to have been a terrible sight. I hit the mountain only about 1,000 vertical feet below the launch site.
My dad was watching from the backyard and he saw the crash happen. After seeing this, he called me and said, "hey somebody crashed, did you see them?!" I responded, "yeah, it was me. I need a helicopter." Somehow I was calm on the phone, but the pain must have been unbelievable. I was in shock.
Miles and Will flew and landed side-hill by me like the true professionals that they are, and Andrew ran down to me. 911 was called and the Ketchum and Hailey fire departments arrived at the base of the mountain along with the Wood River Backcountry Rescue team. I was still 2,000 vertical feet above the rescue teams and the rescue helicopter was 6 hours out. The rescue teams had to make a decision and that was to hike up and then rappel me down with a series of ropes.
Long story short, it took 10 hours to get me off the mountain and to the life-flight helicopter. I was flown the St Alphonsus hospital in Boise for emergency surgery on my leg. I had broken my right femur, sprained both my ankles, tore my PCL in my right knee, hit my head again (with an unhealed skull fracture), broke a finger, and smashed my face really good. The surgeons put a 2 foot long aluminum rod through my hip and down to my knee to hold my femur in place.
After surgery, I was released from the hospital the next day and the rod allowed me to walk with crutches. The healing process was pretty painful and frustrating, but after only 4 weeks I was on my bike. I got too excited and rode 20 miles in under an hour for 3 days straight. This ended up slowing down my ability to rehab because I got tendonitis in my right knee from doing too much too soon.
Anyways, I am back at school and rehabbing every single day. I can mountain bike really hard now which is a true lifesaver, but my hip pops out a lot so that is something I am really concentrating on right now.
I cannot wait for winter and I am so excited to start filming. I plan on doing a series of short films about my travels skiing and flying. My next post should be more on the happy side because I hope to be shredding soon! I want to thank everyone who has supported me along my path of recovery, you are all amazing and inspiring people.
To WATCH the VIDEO of my RESCUE that Fox New did. CLICK HERE
