THE BIG STORY

Jason Regier: How One Man Went From Paralyzed to Gold-Medal Paralympian

On September 22, 1996, JASON REGIER‘s life changed forever. One minute, he was driving from Colorado to Oregon for his final semester of college, and in the next, after a serious car accident, Jason found himself paralyzed from the neck down. He would spend the next excruciating three-and-a-half months rehabilitating and rebuilding his life.

“All the windows blew out,” Jason says. “It was the most violent thing I’d ever been in. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. And I had this killing pain in my neck.” Everyone faces struggles and obstacles in their lives, sometimes on a daily basis, but no one imagines having to rebuild their lives, to lose what they consider routine and to redefine what they they once thought of as normal function. With hard-earned persistence, however, Jason found a new passion for life, aided by the support of his family, friends and rehabilitative therapy.

Growing up in Colorado, sports were a major part of Jason life. He had dedicated himself to playing soccer year-round since he was 12 years old and dreamed of becoming a professional soccer player. That all changed that fateful day during his senior year of college. Jason woke up in the hospital to discover that hey had a dislocation fracture of two upper vertebrae. “I lay there looking at the ceiling,“Jason says, “remembering all the hiking and camping I’d done, the sports I’d played, the plans I’d made. That life was gone.”

After the accident, Jason only had partial use of his upper body. He had to relearn routine activities, such as eating and brushing his teeth. At one point, despaired and unsure of how to find the the motivation break through his physical limitations, Jason recalls the shrewd words of one therapist.

“She looked at me and asked ‘Jason, are you paralyzed from the neck up, or the neck down?’” Angry at first, Jason realized she was right and had to decide if it was the physical injury or the mental injury that was holding him back. Determined to regain his life, Jason found he had the will to push himself through the hospital in his wheelchair. He overdid it. That single act resulted in extreme pain that lasted two weeks. The strong willpower and perseverance that served him his entire life before the accident was now punishing him.

From his ordeal, Jason developed his philosophy of “one step forward,” a philosophy he shares with students, athletes and others who find it difficult to overcome adversity. He had taken the first step to recovery. He couldn’t stop now. After three months of rehabilitation, Jason was able to push himself limited distances and could go home to improve upon his newfound strength.

As he continued his recovery, Jason discovered Quadriplegic “Quad” Rugby, the only team sport for people who are paralyzed from the chest down and who do not have full functions of their arms and hands. Motivated to get back into team sports, Jason soon found himself on another uphill battle.

“What I found out playing this sport was that I had the least amount of function of any of the players out there. I was the bottom of the barrel. I went from being pretty good at sports to the guy everyone picked last.” Although intimidating at first, Jason found peer support and the revival of his competitive spirit in the rough sport. He soon began training full-time. Where once he struggled to push his chair 50 feet, Jason was eventually able to push for more than five miles. Because of the sport and his teammates, Jason recaptured an active and productive life.

Through his experience, Jason can say that recovering from a spinal cord injury is like a crash course in life. He has learned valuable lessons from his disability including living by the mantra do what you can, where you are, with what you have. This quote has served him well as he went on to complete his undergraduate degree from Oregon State, and later earned an MBA and MS in Marketing from the University of Colorado.

Once lying in a hospital, thinking his life was over, Jason’s persistence and his quest to start life anew has rewarded him in ways he never imagined was possible. He has been playing Quad Rugby for his local team, the Denver Harlequins, for more than a decade, and the sport has taken him around the world. He was captain of his team when they won a gold medal at the World Wheelchair Games in Rio de Janeiro. He also played on the team that claimed the gold at the 2006 Wheelchair Rugby World Championships in Christchurch, New Zealand. Then, his biggest sport achievement yet, he earned a gold medal in Beijing as a member of the 2008 U.S. Paralympic Team. He was named the U.S. Quad Rugby Association’s Athlete of the Year for 2008.

“Rugby is the number one factor in my rehabilitation,” Jason says. “When I play I don’t think about being disabled. Out on the court is where I feel most alive.” Jason serves as a powerful role model for all young people who face daunting challenges in their lives. His good humor, inspirational attitude and story of a long journey back from injury will give college audiences a special perspective on the power of the human spirit.

“If we all take that one step forward, we can make a difference,” says Jason, “in our own lives and for other people’s lives.”

Jason is currently training for the 2010 World Championships in Vancouver, Canada. He is also very active with the United States Paralympic Committee and Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF), speaking on behalf of both groups at every opportunity. His college keynote “Getting Back In The Game (And Smashing Stereotypes Along The Way)” is perfect for student-athletes, disability awareness, general leadership events and orientation programming. A member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity, Jason would be an excellent choice for an inspiring keynote at your next Greek Life event.