Arthur Martinot, a C6-C7 quadriplegic, shares his transformative journey following a life-altering diving accident during a vacation in Spain. This episode illuminates the resilience of the human spirit, as Arthur recounts not only his struggles but also the remarkable progress he has achieved in the face of overwhelming challenges. Despite the initial despair and uncertainty regarding his future, he has embraced adaptive sports, particularly wheelchair rugby, as a means to regain independence and connect with a community of individuals who share similar experiences. We delve into the intricacies of his rehabilitation journey, the profound impact of supportive relationships, and the invaluable lessons learned along the way. Join us for an enlightening discussion that underscores the importance of perseverance and the unyielding pursuit of a meaningful life post-injury.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Gemma Davies
• Meta
• Savannah Bananas
• Atlanta Braves
• AGUIAR Professional Training
• Casa Colina
• Triumph Foundation
• Rollins College

The following is a productions original series.

Hello and welcome to Walk and Roll Live. I'm Doug Vincent along with Addie Rich. Our podcast is dedicated to amplifying the voices of the disability community.

I am a polio survivor now, wheelchair user.

And Addie has cerebral palsy. And now I'm a wheelchair user, too. When I go out and about.

Yeah, should say I'm not. I'm not laughing at that. That revelation, but just the way he's.

Laughing at the look on my face and trying to decide what is going to. What I'm going to say.

Oh, goodness sakes. Well, welcome to another week of Rock and Roll Live. Got a wonderful guest this week like we did last week.

Thank you to Gemma Davies for sharing her story with us and. And highlighting fnd which functional neurological disorder. Right.

Yeah.

Right. You know, it's looking. I think I said this maybe in the interview, but when we booked her on, I didn't. Didn't know it was something that was.

And she said that it was rare and all that, but then all of a sudden it started popping up on my social media, you know, people, you know, doing clips with it and there's some.

Yeah, well, once you say a word out loud, then Meta says, oh, honey, you want to talk about that? Okay, let me show you everything I ever thought about that.

Yes, absolutely.

And.

And more. So thank you, Gemma. And we'll continue to keep in touch with her. We've got her resources on the website, so check those out. And how was your week?

My week was fine. My week was productive.

Yeah.

I'm still getting used to, like, a little bit of work differences that keep me busier. It's like once they hand you the title and some money that goes with it, then they're like, cool.

Now we can scoop the rest of it on your plate because we had to be nice because we weren't paying for you.

That's right.

But I like feeling productive.

I know you do. And you did something fun, though. Share that.

Oh, I did something super fun. It was really cool. I don't know if people, because they do travel the US but this Savannah Bananas, which are like the.

Basically the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball. I went to the Savannah Bananas game yesterday, so it was really cool. It was actually at Truest park, which is where the Atlanta Braves play.

They played basically a home stand, which means they played a game Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It was quite fun. It was a ton of people and it was quite hot. But it was. It was fun. They do, you know, they do A lot of crowd work.

They do a lot of like, fun, funny little gimmicks. You know, they don't. Just the people that play like they're really playing baseball.

But you know, when they catch the ball, they might catch it in their hat or they'll like, you know, relay it in instead of just throwing a second or whatever. I mean, it's, it's a show. It's, it's, it's fun.

Isn't there. There's somebody on stilts.

Yes. Oh my, yes. There's this one. It's the world. They say it's the world's tallest batter. And that person, like whoever that person is, is agile in a way.

None of us are agile because they liter hit it, then ran all the way to first. Obviously they were out before they got to the, to the bag. But to run on stilts like their life depended on it was pretty amazing.

The world's largest strike zone, that's for sure. You know, speaking of, of things, you know, the meta. Just listening to things and. Well, I went to Vegas last weekend.

Yeah.

And got together with my siblings and kind of a little mini reunion and we had a good time, hang out by the pool and ate a lot. But of course, but I'm not. My brother gambled. I didn't gamble much or at all. But. But one of the things that.

We had another friend that happened to be there in town visiting her friend. And so we got together with her for just a couple of hours as she was, you know, getting ready. She was packed up, ready to go to the airport. Go home.

Yeah.

But she was talking about the whole situation with this Savannah bananas and I didn't realize, you know, that's why I said to, you know, when you said you got tickets, I said, oh, were you in the lottery? And you said yes. So you have to go into a lottery to even.

Yes.

Get a chance to buy tickets. That's how hot they are, right?

Yeah. I mean, it's funny because I literally was sitting there thinking like, here are these kids that probably were like.

Cuz, I mean, and they like I say they really play and they're good.

So I mean, these are probably kids that, you know, didn't make the majors, but probably would have done very well and like the minor leagues or different things. They're. They're playing and they play like they want to win. But yes, months ago there was a lottery to be. Amanda and my nephew had gone.

When they went to Colorado, my sister was like, there's this really fun thing if it ever comes toward Atlanta, you should do it. So I put my name in the lottery and submitted everything. And then back in October, they said, you've won the right to, like, buy some tickets.

You can buy. I think I could buy, like, up to four or something as a private individual.

And I bought two because at the time I was like, well, I definitely don't want to go by myself, but I have no idea who's going. So I did it, you know.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Yeah. Now do they. Because they're out of South Carolina. Where are they?

Like, Savannah's. Out of Georgia.

Georgia.

So it actually started in, like, coastal Georgia, but they play against rival teams, but it's obvious that they all work for the same production company because it truly is a production. They have, like, an mc, but they.

Don't keep a regular schedule there in Savannah. Right. Where they.

No, they do not.

Now they travel every.

Yeah. There is no home stadium for them. It's booked dates.

Very nice.

Like, I say, they played the party animals, but clearly, like, the party animals are also part of that whole city with them.

Fun. Fun. Yeah. Get your tickets and go check it out. That's all I got.

Well, what did you do? You didn't. Well, I got anything yet.

I. Well, Vegas, you know, went and saw the family.

Vegas. Yeah.

Yeah. I was trying to think. The rest of the week, nothing, you know, nothing outside. The usual.

I was like, on the regular. You're a busy man anyway, being on boards and hanging with your friends, though you're normally the one with the story.

I know, I know, but. But, you know, I was gone Monday, Tuesday, but then, you know, Wednesday, I had some appointments. I had. I get my ears waxed.

Yeah, I know. You don't always like that wax girl either.

Well, no, no, there's only one.

Yeah.

You know, when she spills the wax all over your shirt, it's hard.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, I don't. I don't hate her or just dislike her. I just don't like, you know, some of the things she does. So I found a good one.

But then I had a dermatology, and they took a couple of biopsies, which, you know, they've taken a few. I pretty much figure they're going to be benign, but nice to know, you know? So.

Yeah, all that.

Other than that. Yeah, just kind of the usual stuff. The. The Veterans Village pantry did that. And, uh, we.

We did Mother's Day, you know, Happy Mother's Day to all the moms and the ones that. That act like moms you know, we, we love you and yeah, we gave them little bags fun, you know, like a purse. I mean a nice purse with.

They were like black with. There was a red other. What do you call a clutch or something like that inside? Oh, yeah. Very, very nice. So. Yeah. Yeah. Good week.

All right, today we, we have Arthur Martineau. He's another one of these folks that I accosted an event and invite him on the show and they're gracious enough to join us.

So we'll have our talk with him. You know, another unique story and, and I, I like the. What he's doing today. You know, he's a free spirit, would you say? Yeah, yeah.

So we'll meet him and learn all about him right after this word from AGYAR Professional Training.

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Listening to Walk and Roll Disability Stories.

People look at me sometimes like they're staring through a frame Trying to find the fragile part before they learn my.

Name.

Some say you're so brave Some say I could never like this life I'm living in Ain't just life all together But I'm thinking about the rent this morning Whether dad's still doing fine Trying to hold my family close Still a little peace of mind I know they mean well but they don't understand I'm not searching for saving I'm just making my plans don't look at me like I'm broken and don't look at me like a cause I'm chasing love and paying bills and getting through these eyes I've got dreams that keep me up at night Same fears running through underneath a different story I'm not that different from you we all want somebody to hold us we all want a little more time we're all just trying to find our way under the same.

Sky well, thank you for joining us on Walk and Roll Live. Doug here. Addie is here as well, and our guest for this week, Arthur Martineau.

And we're gonna let him do a brief introduction, and we're gonna take over, so go ahead.

Yeah. Hi. Thanks for having me. My name is Arthur. I'm a C6, C7 quad. Quadriplegic.

I was injured about four years ago, and I live in Pomona, just outside of Los Angeles.

Very good. One of those fortunate things when you live in Southern California and you get injured. Casa Kalina is there. Triumph foundation is here.

You know, it's all these things that are just so wonderful for our community. So I figured we'd start, like, to start at the beginning and. And we're going to start with your growing up in Canada and France.

Tell us how that shaped Arthur.

Yeah, I mean, I. You know, Montreal is an interesting place. It's. It's francophone. There's a lot of, you know, French speakers there.

We went to specifically a French school, you know, so a lot of people who had moved from France went to that school. So I grew up, you know, speaking French. French, not French Canadian. There's a distinction. Nothing wrong with French Canadian. It's. We.

It was a fun culture to kind of mix, intermix into. But, yeah, we. You know, it was freezing cold up there, and I learned to enjoy the cold.

I loved snowstorms and playing outside, and I always developed a love for the outdoors. And we travel, you know, all over, and we. We used to go to Florida. We would drive down in the car and just, you know, go to Florida.

And I learned to really appreciate the ocean and. And warm weather.

Okay, I have to make a joke about that because I lived in Toronto for five years. I was married to a Canadian, and I feel like it's like, if you live in Canada, you all get a Florida pass, which, with your, like, Canadian life.

Because, I mean, I.

Absolutely.

So many people, that's the only place they go for vacation. It's a straight shot, going straight down. But, like. Like, so many people are like, yeah, we're going to Florida. I'm like, not surprising.

And I imagine they do that in the winter time, right?

They do, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A lot of people get time.

Snow, birds. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's super popular. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

I have to entertain.

Can't blame them, you know, can't blame the Canadians. Yeah, right.

But I mean, there's other places y' all could go. I don't. Okay, Florida. I don't know what just makes it just. Just go straight to Florida. That's good. I don't know.

I have great memories of my childhood and spending over there. St. Augustine and Daytona.

I mean, I do love, yeah, I do love it now because my friends that I made while I was up there, they go to Florida, I'll meet them. Because I'm in Georgia, you know, it's, it's much closer than going back up there.

So I'm, I kind of like the expressway that exists between the two places. I just find it funny.

Yeah, yeah.

So Canada and some, some trips to Florida then, then how did France come in?

So France, we decided, I guess my dad, my parents wanted to go back to France and see how it was. I think they were over the cold and they're like, okay, well France south of, let's try the south of France.

It's a lot more temperate and I think they just had a hankering to return to their roots.

So is that where they were from?

Yeah, they're both French. My dad was born and raised in Paris. My mom is from Lille and she's from the north. And yeah, they met in Paris and my mom was an actress.

My dad was a photographer. Photographer. He's been a photographer. He's retired now. They've actually both still live in Florida. They're retired.

So you get to go back?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not quite as fun as it used to be when I was a kid.

I mean, California is kind of like where it's at for me, but yeah, it's, it's still nice to go back.

So how, how did you feel about going to France?

You know, I, I, I, I don't know if I'd enjoy, if I enjoyed it as much. I think I was pretty Americanized by that, by that point.

How old were you?

I mean, that was a, that was 10 years old when I, when we moved back. And yeah, it just, the schooling was different. You know, Canadians are super chill, relaxed, really very cool.

The whole mentality is just very easy going, you know, And France is a little bit more high strung. I got in a lot of fights at school, so it's kind of good. I learned to fight, but, you know, it just wasn't really my, my bag.

My brother, my older brother is much more academic, a little bit more, he was more into schooling and academically speaking, it's a much better place. At least it was for him. So he, he kind of was flourishing there and he really enjoyed the city life.

Yeah. And so how old were you then? So you go 13. Okay, so three years stunt.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty quick. Yeah. And my parents were also happy to be in a warmer client, like, really warm climate and reunite with my sister who was living there.

She's 16 years older than me, my half sister, and she married an American, and we, you know, it was good to reconnect with her. She was just, she just had her first kid. And for my parents to be grandparents was a cool thing, so.

Uncle Arthur.

Yeah, yeah, it was cool. Yeah. And I, I, I, I think the schooling was more my speed. It was, Was not, Was a little bit easier.

Yeah. Right. Not as.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, so at this point, had your athleticism already, you know, come to the forefront? Were you playing basketball and different things like that?

I tried out for the soccer team my sophomore year, and I just didn't do well.

I wasn't really good at skilled sports, but my brother joined the, the rowing team, and my parents, like, forced me, and they're like, just, just try it out. All right. It looks lame, but I'll try. I fell in love with. I was like, immediately just like, oh, this is kind of awesome.

It was that high school.

Yeah, yeah, this was high school.

Yeah. They didn't have rowing at my high school.

No, no, no.

And we were fairly close to the ocean, But I don't know, do you do it in the ocean or is.

It more of a do not do.

It in the ocean?

Sounds like the ocean.

Whoa. Okay.

Actually, I have recently seen that. I saw a video on, on social media. They do have ocean rowing on these specially adapted boats up the face of waves.

And, you know, you got the coach or the cox and just screaming at people to get past the crust. It's pretty. It looks pretty intense. But no classical rowing, you know, Ivy League type of stuff.

But we, we practice on lakes in Florida a lot of places, practice on rivers. Big northeast sport.

And you did pretty well at it.

I did, yeah. Yeah, we are. My first year, my brother and I were in the same boat, the Lightwave 4, and we won a national title.

I know. I never heard anybody use that not being a metaphor of some kind.

I know, right?

Yeah.

My brother and I were in the same boat.

Right.

Sorry.

Yeah, he, he wasn't too happy about it.

Yeah. He was probably like, oh, my kid brother.

Yeah. Yeah. He did not like me very much. You know, he'd found rowing. He's like, cool. I got my own thing.

And then, you know, here I come along and join in with him. And now I want his back. He's got to take me to practice, you know, he just wasn't too happy about it. But we did well. We did really well.

The other two in the boat were also a pair of brothers.

Oh, well, that's kind of cool.

Yeah, it did.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was cool. It was fun.

How do you feel like, so playing in this. Well, playing in a sport like that, the discipline and things of that sport, like, did it help your academics? Did it like.

I. I just see it as so disciplined and like something that you've got to pay attention. And if you were kind of a kid that was like, oh, who cares? I don't know. Were you just paying attention in school enough to do your rowing?

Because I used to be a teacher. Yes, I will say it like that. Because I had boys that the only reason they were aiming for a C was so they could play.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's kind of how it was for me. Yeah. I. I was not academic, Academically motivated at that time.

I became much more interested in academia later on in life. I just wasn't ready for it. I didn't find any subjects that. I mean, I love art, and that's.

None of my art teachers really encouraged me or were encouraging into the subject itself. Like, my art teachers were like, straight up, like, I don't know if not much you can do with art. We love it.

You know, they're kind of arts and crafty, but, you know, I'm a teacher.

You see, this is what I did.

Yeah, exactly. So I was like, I don't know if there's a future in art. Then I couldn't have been more wrong.

I realized that later in life, especially when I moved to Los Angeles, which is a big art city. There are so many things you could do with art and there's so many different kinds of art. Something I wish I had known in high school. But I kind of.

I was interested in it and I just kind of moved away from it because I didn't see an avenue. But as far as relating to sports.

Yeah, I was just motivated by.

By rowing, you know, I was. I. I loved it and seemed to be enough to fulfill me at the time.

Yeah, exactly.

But it got me a scholarship, so it got me into college.

Yeah.

There we're going. That was our next stop. Is that you did so well. You got a full scholarship.

I did yeah, something else with it.

What did you do?

Oh, with, with my, with my scholarship. No, I dropped out of college.

Now you won a national champion?

Yeah, yeah. You won a national. Yeah, at. And won a national title.

Our school, this tiny little college in Long island had a little bit of money because I, I guess they were trying to make up for a lot of, for a lot of other sports and they're trying to balance it out. So it was a private school and they were able to. It was the only school that I ever heard of who was given money out specifically for rowing.

So they recruited me, they recruited a bunch of other people from different countries, national team rowers for. From Yugoslavia at the time, from Greece, from El Salvador. So we had like an all star cast, badass rowers.

And so we won, you know, this is the second year we were fully screwed up and won a national title then also in the lightweight four. And after that I was like, okay, I think I'm, I'm good. You know, being a student athlete is extremely demanding.

Yes.

It's full time job, you know. And then on top of that I was working and then on top of that going to school.

So it didn't really, I didn't have the normal college experience that a lot of people who go to like maybe a state school, you know, go, go, you know, have a hab. So it's good. I needed to kind of grow up and I needed to chill out and really focus on something. So that's exactly what I needed.

So at that point, what was your major?

Undeclared.

Undeclared, yeah. So it wasn't anything that kind of what you were working towards as the rest of your life?

No, I had no idea what I wanted to do. I was just going to college because that's what everybody does.

I guess I might as well take advantage of this, this opportunity and you know, whatever happens come, will come later. I had some interest, but nothing that I wanted to for sure pursue.

Right. Well you know, when you got you in the door. So it wasn't like you must study this in order to stay here, so.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Plus you learn years old, learn kind of what you're made of. Hunted to, you know, to try to get your education. So study row, work out. Work. Yeah, work.

Yeah, I was, yeah, I got a job at a call center. I was, I was selling chimney sweeping service on, on the phone. So cold calling people like.

Yeah, I wasn't very good at that.

Either, but I paid some of the bills.

That was, I think one of my first, like, real jobs.

Yeah.

We were selling household products.

Okay.

Mops and all that kind of stuff. Yep.

Yeah.

Glamorous.

Yeah. Yeah.

So you drop out. You drop out your camp, you get your championship or your title, and then you're like, okay, peace.

Yeah, I think I was kind of.

I. I was ready to. To get out of there, and I wasn't really getting much out of school, and I just wanted to go back to Florida and figure something out.

I just wanted to work and. And not row anymore, and that's what I did. I went back to Florida. I moved around a little bit, moved back in with my parents for a few. A few months.

And then my mom, at the time was funding her own film. She wanted to be. She had just graduated from UCF University, Central Florida in filmmaking, and she was like.

She wanted to shoot her own film, and it turned out to be good timing. I helped her out with it. Not the I was, you know, behind season kind of production stuff. I was.

I did some onset photography and some catering, so I took care of the food and all that, which was. It was a really cool project. Everybody who worked on that project was really passionate about it.

Central Florida, not a whole lot of production going on. Yeah.

I'm like, it's strange place for production, but, I mean, your mom was an actress prior, correct, so.

Exactly.

So she had her ends to kind of be like, I'm gonna do this.

Yeah. She.

I'm nosy, though. What did they say when you're like, yo, I'm dropping out of school? Were they like, and you're nuts?

Yeah, kind of. My. My teammates were like, okay, are you. Yeah, they were just kind of surprised. And what did your parents.

How do you announce that to your parents? My mom would have shot me right back to school.

I don't. I don't think they really care. They were doing their own thing. They're like, we get it. You know, that's a lot of work.

And why go through this if you don't know what you want to do? Why go, you know, go through all these if there's no outcome?

Yeah. It sounds like both yourself, the creative type, so they're more understanding of that kind of thing.

They were. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah. My mom wrote, directed, and produced this film. And.

So what was the next big, I don't know, encounter in your life that with either work or education or whatever?

Well, I reconnected with some. I moved around a bunch. I tried modeling. I. I moved to Miami, New York. That was not for Me modeling or.

Miami or New York?

All of the above. Miami was really fun. Don't get me wrong. New York was not for me, and modeling was definitely not for me.

Yeah.

So I ended up wanting to go back to school, and I reconnected with some of my high school friends. They were living in Winter park at the time, which is where Rollins College is, just in the Orlando area. And, and that seemed to kind of.

I, I found a little bit of a rhythm there. I, I, I decided that we wanted to, I found a, a major that I wanted to do, which was environmental and growth management studies.

I want to do, I want, I was like, oh, maybe I can be an urban planner or parks designer or something.

Like, I was really motivated to that field and I did well in school and, you know, I, I, I was just working in restaurants, having a good time, and living with, to my, my buddies from, from high school. We were, it's kind of like ideal. We were just a lot of good times. We lived really close to the lake. Yeah, it was just, it was a good time.

Living the dream, but with a, with a flash of adulthood because you finally were like, okay, I'm going to try this.

Exactly. Yeah, there was some direction.

There you go. How old were you at that point?

It was, there was just no constraints and finishing school on my own schedule, finding something that I liked. Yeah. And then I reconnected with a girl that I had met a while back, and I was kind of, yeah, we, we were kind of serious. And she was moving out.

She was finishing school and at nyu, also in film. And she was like, I'm moving out to Los Angeles. Do you want to come with me? And I said, yeah, absolutely. So Los Angeles was our next destination.

And we didn't even really move in together. We kind of broke up immediately. It just didn't work out. She got me into production. Yeah, exactly.

She, she was working in production and got me on downstairs as a pa and that really was the start of my, my career in the film business. And that's, I just didn't look back at that point. I finally had something that I could focus on and work towards. And I love working.

You know, I'm not afraid to work hard. And you got to work hard, Long hours on set. It's, it's, it's no joke.

Yeah, yeah.

There's a lot of production here in Atlanta and a lot of friends that work in Production and it is grueling when you're doing it is. People don't realize. We watch the show and we're like, it's 40 minutes. That was a really cute show. You're like, yeah.

And that took like six weeks and 600 people and 15 hour days.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. You don't really see what goes on behind the scenes. You have no idea.

Yeah.

The amount of time and money spent and. But yeah, there was always the promise of a bigger position available. This was at the time where, you know, the film was still booming.

And then things slowly started trickling and I always felt like I was chasing the success. And I got to a good point. I joined the art department, which was even more my thing.

I had, you know, a little bit of a background in construction and anchoring things. And you know that art department is, is that it's props and building sets.

Yeah.

Setting up the. This. Anything that's physical behind the camera or behind. In front of the camera.

So did digital take that space over?

Yeah, digital over eventually took over.

I think we, Right at that time, yeah, people were talking about the red camera and that became huge and yeah, that became ubiquitous and people stopped shooting film shooting.

When I first started working at people, they were still camera loaders and you know, they would run these magazines back and forth, you know, all day.

Verify this for me. I, I watched a, a documentary on that, the red camera. And, and I didn't realize that like a film camera only holds about 15 minutes of film.

Is that right?

I guess so, yeah, it sounds about right. I wasn't in the camera department. Those guys were running back and forth all the time.

So.

Yeah, because I'm thinking you're shooting a movie that's two and a half hours long and you know, I'm sure you have hours and hours of footage to get down to a two hour movie. And it just seemed like if you're stopping down to whoa, you'd kind of interrupt the flow or something.

Well, but now that makes you understand why they, they film a scene and they cut and they film like you're literally. But I think they're cutting for the.

End of the scene. Not necessarily because they had to reload the camera, right? Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Yeah, both also. Yeah, they're always calling, you know, reload. Yeah, it definitely dictates the rhythm for sure.

So did that until Internet said Yeah, we can do this a different way.

I mean, the film that didn't really affect me. I think the. What affected the business in general in a big way was. Was the crash. And production was very slow to start back up.

Things started leaving town. Other places started attracting business, and Georgia became a huge place to shoot. Canada, a lot of places started. So.

Yeah.

And wages were stagnant. You know, people weren't making. And I. There was. I was not in the union. I actually joined the art department union just before the crash.

Yeah.

And after the crash, like, I lost my hours and I wasn't able to get back into that. And I never joined the unit again. Those wages slowly, you know, they were kind of keeping up with the time since. But non union, you got this.

Yeah, but as feasible as it sounds, when they talk about actors and actress salaries. Yeah, I'm talking about what you're getting.

Above the line, Below the line. Yeah, yeah. I mean, at the time, it was good money for me. I was just kind of starting out as a PA.

I think I was making 200 bucks a day and it didn't matter. Yeah, it was good at the time. Yeah. I mean, and then you start realizing, was it. Was it really that good if I made. I worked 14, 16 hours or 300 bucks?

It's like, maybe. Maybe I could do that.

Yeah. I mean, when you do the math of it, I mean, there are a lot of jobs, Right. When we do. Don't do the math. Just do your job.

Because, like, that's right.

It'll be uncomfortable, but.

And hopefully you're getting something else out of it, you know, experience and knowledge and, you know, and that's what it was.

Yeah. I was hungry for knowledge and hungry for. I mean, you really learn about filmmaking as a whole. You learn.

You learn from every department, see what they do. And, you know, I learned a lot from the art department and the art directing and then, you know, photo composition and how to make shots, lighting.

And it's just. You kind of take it in, take it all in. And it's really. It's an electric field to be on set, to be among, you know, all these creatives. It's a.

It's a cool feeling. And then you look at the finished product, you're like, oh, wow, I worked on that.

Yeah, that was my. I built that.

Yeah, exactly. So when did you moved it up to. Yeah, our art department.

And then I started getting my own gigs, you know, and I was working side by side in Photo World as well, and photo advertising and editorial stuff. So I started kind of getting small accounts. Producer would call me and be, hey, I'm doing a photo shoot for this magazine.

Do you want to come do some props and some sets on. On that? Yeah, absolutely.

Amazing.

And then.

So I built my own business and. And then started hiring my own people and. And started doing more.

I was, you know, really kind of ramping things up, doing more bigger and bigger jobs and working with, like, name, you know, dps and. And directors on certain commercials. And then. Yeah, and then what stopped it all was, was the accident.

I was on vacation in Spain, and we had planned this thing during COVID You know, my wife and I were eating a bunch of delicious French cheese and drinking wine and just kind of living it up during COVID You know, it'd be really nice in a couple of years when things open back up again, would be to take, you know, an extended vacation in the south of France and Spain. And then we just hatched the plan and we invited a bunch of people and family and along different points of boo up on the way.

It was phenomenal.

And then we just kind of went to a little place in Provence and had some friends come over and hang out, drink a bunch of wine and explore the area, and then drove down to Costa Brava, just north of Barcelona. Yep. And that takes us to the.

To your new day, your new way.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

So. So tell. Tell us as much as you're comfortable about what happened. I mean, obviously, you've had this. How long were you gone?

How long had you been gone? And then this happens.

We had been gone probably five weeks at that point. Okay. And we had just arrived at our next location, this little house close to the beach in Plechadaro, which is in Costa Bravo.

And we spent the day at the beach.

The next day, we spent a whole.

Night, a whole day at the beach. And, you know, it's a beautiful setting. Rocks and a bunch of people. It's pretty crowded. And then there's like a bunch of kids jumping off on the.

Off the rocks in the water. And we found this little channel, this. And I. It was perfect to Dive into. And I was diving in that place all day.

And then I did at the end of the day, it was 8pm it's still really light out, you know, mid summer. And I decided to try another spot to jump off of and I did a huge swan dive and I, I mean, I really planned it out.

I calculated all my steps and everything and I, I even snorkeled the area before to kind of scout make sure it was deep enough apparently, you know, I, I was mistaken. So messed up. Yeah. Yeah, it just. I may have over jumped. I may have jumped actually too far because I was afraid, you know, hit the rocks below. So.

But yeah, I, I heard the crunch and I surfaced and I had just enough arm function left that I could just tread water like this. And the water line was right under my, my bottom lip.

And I, I, the corner of my eye, I could see this kid on, on the rock above me, just looking down but not doing or saying anything. And I was like, help. Help. Yeah, I don't think he knew.

Were you by yourself or.

We might.

My, my wife was on the beach and then our friends and their three kids were on the beach and they were all kind of watching this, but they didn't see me jump.

Oh, they did not.

They saw me jump and they saw me run, but they didn't see me jump in the water. But they knew that I had jumped.

Yeah.

And I guess the, the oldest son was like, he should have come around the rocks by now. I should have come up.

And so they came.

You know, my buddy Martin came around and was, and walked up to where he'd see and, and noticed I was in trouble, so he jumped in and then fished me out. And at that point I was like bleeding heavily and he, he asked me if I had hit the rock. And I was like, yeah, I hit the rock.

Oh, so you hit the rocks. That was what I was gonna ask. Did you hit the bottom or you hit the rocks?

I hit a rock. I had a submerged rock, like deep one. But I don't think I hit it going down. I think I, I went down and.

Then hit it then on the turn to come back up.

On the turn to come back up. I believe that's where I hit it because I, I had my hands in front of me the whole time. And I don't, I never don't.

If I, if I only, you know, take a, A, a push with my hands, a pull. Because you have your hands in front of you when you jump and then they're in front of me the whole time until I'm ready to come back up.

And then I used that momentum to push myself back up. I must have been going back up at that point.

Now, are you. Are you assessing all of this from your injuries and, like, what you know about diving, or do you remember it?

Oh, no, I don't remember that. I don't remember. Okay. I remember the crunch. I remember knowing what that felt like.

You're like, oh, yeah, that is not the noise I was anticipating.

Never heard that before.

Nor the feeling of freedom that I thought I would feel.

Nope. No, no.

So your friend comes around, the kid that was above you. Did he hear you say help? And think like, well, I should help or.

I don't think so. I. I barely remember at that point. The only thing I remember is the crunch. Treading water.

And then I remember having a brief conversation with my friend. I don't remember the details beyond that. Apparently somebody had. An adult had seen me and was screaming, you know, ambulance. Yeah, Lancia.

Yeah.

And I think they were. They told me they were trying to get me back up on the rocks from that air. From that point.

And I wasn't working, so they swam me to the beach from around the rocks. And then I just. I only remember laying on the beach, looking up at the sky, feeling like I was floating, not feeling my legs.

Understanding the gravity of the situation.

Yeah.

And apologizing to my wife. I'm so stupid. So stupid. I'm so sorry that I knew what had happened and I knew how bad. I knew I didn't know how bad it would get.

I didn't really fully.

You knew it was a bad situation. You didn't know how the final permanence would be. The way you're in a foreign country. You. Does anybody speak Spanish at that point?

My wife is fluent. Yeah.

Okay, good. So she could communicate.

Yes.

Big problem.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Is this isolated the area? How long does it take for emergency services to get there?

20 Minutes for the ambulance. It took about 20 minutes for the ambulance to get there. Were police that were there fairly quickly. They were closed. The crowd had gathered around.

And then it took about 20 minutes for the ambulance to come. And they took me to one hospital nearby. The hospital turned me away. They said it was, you know, they couldn't handle me there.

Yeah.

So they took me to Barcelona to a place called Valdebrone, where they had, you know, surgery. And day later, I think it took a day. So they had to do a bunch of tests.

They sedated me because I was in shock and I was, like, apparently freaking out and they, I think I would.

Be freaking out too. Yeah, I, like, put me to sleep. I don't know what can.

Because you can't do anything, but your body wants to do everything, include live and breathe and do all the things.

Yeah. And it's going into shock because I wasn't able to breathe so well, I had probably had some water in my little bit of water in my lungs.

And yeah, my, my body was reacting, so in order to get me into the MRI and all that, they me. So, yeah, I think they put me under and then, you know, hours later, I was in the surgery.

And I woke up two days later, two days after the accident in a hospital bed in the icu and I was able to move my arms. I was really excited about that.

Yeah.

And I think I had a good sense of humor at that point. I was still in shock, but, you know, yeah, it was, it got real very quickly. My, my wife was there when, when I woke up.

I think my brother had flown in from Boston overnight. I was happy to see them. And then everything started when they, if his visiting hours in the ICU are very short.

Like, yeah, I think they had an hour, you know, so when they left us, I started getting really scared. It's, there's not a whole lot going on the icu. It's just you and your brain and the reality of things setting in.

And was your wife, was she able to stay with you, though?

No.

Not even your wife?

No, nobody. I was alone every night.

That was the worst. Never knew night was 12 hours long and felt like 57 bazillion seconds.

Yeah. Oh, sorry. My, my earphones just died or my headphones just died and my cat just arrived.

Oh, nice.

Ah, good.

It happens.

Yes.

Hey, kitty.

You're in a foreign country. You're in an icu. So you have.

With your thoughts.

Alone with your thoughts, but so you have to get well enough to even be transferred to anywhere. To, to get you anywhere.

Yes. Yeah.

That was a whole thing. That was, that was intense. So luckily. So my, my main nurse was in the daytime. They have three shifts over there. They work eight hour shifts.

So there's, there's three different shifts that come in. My day nurse was amazing. She spoke perfect English and she was there, you know, when I initially woke up and I, I felt really comfortable.

I, I was like, okay, if I.

Could communicate with somebody. She was super attentive, extremely sweet. And when she finished her shift,.

I broke down.

Like, I, I, I I felt like I was just being abandoned. And then the night shift came in. Night shift people are very different. Yeah, they're pretty rough.

They did not care, you know, they were playing music out, you know, in the main room. They. Most of the other patients, all the other patients were unconscious. I was the only conscious patients.

So they're loud and they're kind of, you know, boy, you know, but. And they're not very attentive and they're very rough, you know, and there's a lot. At that point, I've been, you know, I'm.

I have a number of different tubes going inside of me in different ends. I have a breathing tube, feeding tube, and a tube, you know, at the other end, and they're, you know, I.

Feel like a piece of meat being.

Turned to clean and all that. It's just kind of awful not sleeping. I'm hallucinating heavily from the drugs and the shock and.

Yeah, it was surreal for, for two, three days in the first two, three days were honestly the worst time of my life.

It was. It was.

It was pretty, pretty horrible. But yeah, it took about. If they finally, I think after about four days, they removed the. So a day it took to remove the, the breathing tube.

I was able to kind of breathe on my own. Luckily, I had a fracture at the C2, so they were super worried that. That things were going to get be worse.

But it turned out to be a hairline fracture and not much swelling at that level. So I was breathing on my own.

I had a little bit of a lung infection and four days afterwards, I was able to have my, My feeding tube removed, which is. I don't know if you've ever had a feeding tube. Not fun. Not, not fun at all. Every time you swallow it just super painful.

Yeah.

So. Yeah, yeah.

So it became a more real life when you got that out because you, like, now my throat is my own. If the rest of me is not throat is now my own.

Yeah, it's a man. And that was such a huge relief. And it's the, you know, the rest.

Of the recovery, we just.

Small steps like that, like, okay, what's.

The next thing I've got? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, so, so what was the, like the, the rehab system like in Spain?

The system was excellent. It was, it was really good in that hospital.

Once I got out of the icu, I, I went to the, the another wing of that hospital with a bunch of other people who had spinal cord injuries. After a couple of days, I was stable enough that they could Take me to their little rehab place for about an hour a day.

And at that point I was even just too weak to push myself in a wheelchair. And wheelchair. So they would push me down there. I couldn't stand at all. Like they have standing frames to try to kind of get your body moving.

It's good for your bones, it's good for circulation and all that stuff. So I couldn't do it for maybe more than 30 seconds. Low blood pressure was so bad.

So your blood pressure was like, see ya. I'm gonna pass.

Yeah, it was awful.

And I was having, you know, bowel accidents constantly from antibiotics and just the food and just the shocks still. That lasted for a long time.

So they finally, after about a month of doing this and slowly, slowly getting better, I got transferred to a state of the art rehab facility for people with spinal cord injuries and, and strokes and that kind of thing, but mostly spinal cord injuries. And they, they had for, for, for Spaniards, for European citizens. It's free if you have been paying into the system, you know.

Yeah, so I, I, I hadn't and I was considered a foreign, you know, a patient. And they have a specific wing for, for foreigners.

And we, we pay out of pocket,.

But it's still a fraction of what it would cost here in the States.

Yeah, I was like, that's the scary part. Like if you're in the U.S. you just like, yeah, let's not even go there. But that was my curiosity about what happens here in this foreign country.

I mean, you guys are on vacation. Your wife now has to like live there for a while. You're living there in a facility. Like, how do you, how, how does.

This all, yeah, how'd that work? So the facility is amazing. It's a, it's, it's, you know, I had my own room. It was a small extra price to pay for my own room.

My wife is, is now living in a temporary apartment not far away. And people are coming in, you know, to, they want to help visit and just provide support.

So she's constantly hosting family, friends and, and, and then coming in, you know, every window of visiting hours.

So I think there was like three hours maybe, I can't remember exactly, but it was, it wasn't very long, maybe three, four hours a day where people could come in and visit. So she's managing all that. She's managing our life back home. We are having to rent our house.

We're, you know, realizing at this point our house in Los Angeles is not going to be habitable when we come Back because it's for you. So the front door, it's. It's built into the hill, so we're not going to be able to live.

There when we get back.

So she's finding, you know, people to move into our house and pay the mortgage and, you know, until we get back, moving our stuff out of there. So she's organizing our lives and, you know, dealing with all those changings. Changes and dealing with her work and, you know, she's an educator.

She works at Santa Ana College. She was able to kind of get a little bit of leeway to, to. To take some time off to take care of all that stuff, luckily, and work from.

From home, if you will.

So. And I'm, you know, I'm living in this, in this hospital room, you know, and they took care of everything.

The nursing was the best I had the entire time that I've been injured. Super intense.

What kinds of things were available to you, Arthur? Were there support groups and OT and PT and OT and PT and yeah,.

They call them the physios. We had our own rehab room with our own, you know, scheduled. We had, I think it was six hours a day of ptot. And then it's.

It's a huge campus and there's a beautiful outdoor area you can push around and hang out. There's like a reading room at a game room. And, you know, I got to know a little bit. I got to know some of the other patients a little bit.

I'm still friends with some of them.

That's amazing.

Yeah, you really connect with when you're.

In the same situation.

Yeah.

I was gonna say you have a shared of experience going on vacation, not expecting to have like a traumatic life experience.

Yeah.

Have a traumatic life experience. I mean, it sounds weird to say, but like, there.

But for the grace that you had an accident in Europe where they will take care of you and not drain your bank account in the first six weeks of your, you know, injury to where you're like, okay, like, who's going to work? Because we can't afford this.

Like, absolutely. Yeah.

There was a silver lining. It would be to be in a place where they care for you without saying, well, what? First give me the passcode to your bank.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it was a little bit of that there. The, the insurance paid for, for the, the emergency stuff. So everything that happened at the first part of the hospital, the.

The insurance covered, and it was a fraction of what it would have been in the U.S. i mean, it probably would have been quarter of A million dollars here in the US Is what the impairment, the insurance would have paid out. And I think they ended up paying like $53,000 for everything in the hospital.

It can be done.

Yeah, yeah.

It's crazy. It's.

It's incredible.

And they do cash prizes here, prices here. You know, if you go into a doctor or hospital, they're going to negotiate with you.

Yeah.

Got to stand up for usa, for crying out loud.

Right, right.

No, that's true. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But they're not going to, they're not going to let you, you know, just flounder on your own. You know.

We're going to, for sure.

Yeah.

But Canada is very similar because, like, moving up there when you have to go through, like, the permanent resident process, which I did.

Yeah.

I had a medical problem and, you know, they said, okay, but you've got to pay, like, $150 to see the doctor in the emergency room. I was like, $150. Okay. Like, I, I was terrified to even go because I was like, what if this just breaks my savings and I can't, I can't.

Well, yeah, you know, not to get too deep into it, but, you know, if I counted the number of people from Canada and England who came here for the health care, because they couldn't get health care there, because, you know, you're on a, you're on a waiting list and you don't hear about those things. Yeah. It's free. But, you know, if you have something that's cancerous and you can't get into a doctor for three months, you might be dead.

Yeah.

So it ain't all, you know, kittens and puppies.

Yes.

Anyway.

Anyways, it depends on, on the, on the, the, the, the situation. I think with a major situation like this, it's that. That socialized healthcare works really well. Maybe different types of care. It's.

I've heard it's also. Yeah. Very difficult to get in to see doctors regularly.

If it's not size, like just your regular doctor, if you need to see a specialist. Yeah. Then it gets very difficult. Yeah.

You know, in this country, you know, we talked about health care for a long time before we have what we have now.

And, you know, and I learned along the way that, you know, those $8 aspirins are to pay for people who they care for who don't have insurance, you know, because there's plenty.

It's called cost shifting, you know, so they charge $8 for an aspirin that goes to the Insurance company, they pay it and then that extra 750, you know, or whatever it is, you know, goes to pay for the people anyway. Let's go down that road.

The goal was to get you to a stable place, to be able to travel.

Yeah, yeah. To get you home. So do you, do you learn everyday things as well too?

Just, you know, how to transfer, how to pivot, how to, you know, get some clothes on and off and that kind of thing?

I still is so early at this point.

Even when I was discharged, you know, after three months, so a total of four and a half months since the accident, I still couldn't put my, my clothes on on my own. I could barely feed myself. It was, it was pretty, pretty significant accident.

Some other people who I've, I've talked to who had similar accidents that recovered a lot quicker, but it all, all depends. Every injury, everybody's different.

Yeah.

So you would be considered a quad, right? You're a quadruple.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And yeah, the severity was, was pretty, pretty acute.

Yeah.

So it took a while to get back. It took a while to get anything back.

So at the end of three months, I could, I could manage to push a wheelchair, you know, down the hallway for about 10 minutes on a flat surface. And that's, that was, that was pretty much it. I wasn't transferring on my own at all.

I was still using a board and some help and I could barely hold my head up still and, and you know, struggling every day with low blood pressure. So it took quite a long time.

So for people who have as acute of an injury as me, who, you know, have not had three months in, of rehab, which is, you know, common here in a lot of places, I don't know how I would have fared. I'd have to been discharged six weeks after my accident. That would have been really, really tough. And I hear that constantly.

I hear people here, you know, I work with Triumph and I volunteer with them and we hear that story all the time. Yeah, they just let me go home after six weeks. I don't, you know, then good luck. It's, it's kind of crazy.

And it's not a story from the past. Right. It's a fairly recent experience.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Some of the, the guys who've been, some of the people who've been injured.

A long time, they're like, yeah, back.

In the day we used to get three months, three, three, four months.

Yeah, we've, we've heard a lot of those stories. I Know, there was a young lady that was on. This was the extent of what she got. Somebody who. She has no idea who it was, who would like to thank him.

But he came into her. Her hospital room and spent about 20 minutes, and that's. That's what.

That was the cornerstone of everything going forward, you know, that she kind of Learned in that 20 minutes. The rest she had to kind of piece together herself.

That's right. Yeah, that's. That's exactly right. I mean, it's hard to imagine for somebody who hasn't had to go through this or hasn't talked to somebody, it.

The amount of changes, the amount of things that you have to get used to and learn about, like, just to kind of get through the day. I didn't know anything. Nobody knew anything. I'd never really talked to anybody who's a wheelchair user.

I didn't know anything about wheelchairs, about.

And why would you.

Right, right.

Yeah.

Unless they're a part of your life,.

You know, and all the care, you know, and, you know, volunteering with triumph. That's what we try to. We try to make that transition a little bit. Bit easier.

Yeah. And it's tough.

We don't get a lot of time.

We get an hour a week with some of these newly injured people, and they're only in there for a few weeks, so you really have total maybe five, six hours to kind of try to get them to think about what they might have to go through to get used to and use this opportunity to provide them with all this information all at once. It's a lot. I remember being in the hospital. I'm like, I'm not ready to take any of this information. And thinking of one day at a time.

I just want to focus on my rehab. I need to learn how I'm gonna, you know, pee or whatever or.

Exactly right. That was what I was going to say. All the autonomic things that happen, and then those.

Those muscles and those, you know, synthesis columns that bring the message do not work. And. Yeah. You just suddenly are like, wait, what? All that stuff that just happened is not no longer going to just happen.

Actually, you have to think about it. You have to. Yeah, yeah.

Or it. Or make sure you don't get septic because you have to go to the bathroom. You still create waste. Whether or not it knows to come out. I mean, that's.

That's a challenge, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're thrown into a different world. Just got to try to figure it all out.

So they're. They're getting ready to bring you home and then you've now got people to rent your house. But now you've got to get a house or somewhere to go.

Like, who's doing all that? Your wife is with you, right?

At that point, she's doing all that. My friends and family are, have moved us out at this point.

They've come in and gotten together and moved a lot of our stuff, put it in the garage, rented it out, rented the house out short term. And we found some short term tenants who were going to rent it for, you know, month to month. And then we're getting ready to fly back.

And my brother had figured out we were trying to get the insurance company to fly, to fly me home, you know, and at this point, I can't just board a plane and then, you know, sit in a, in a, on a plane. So we have to have some kind of medical transport and the insurance is like, no, we're not paying for that. It's all, it's all on you.

And my brother had found out that American Express, the company that I used to pay for the trip, does cover medical transport in case of emergency. So that's what we did and called them. They're like, yep, here's an agency, a service you can.

There's, you know, air nurses or whatever they call them. These two nurses flew to Spain, consulted with us and they were like, cool, we're going to come back tomorrow, we're going to put you on a plane.

And then that's what we did.

We connected and then we, they, they had like a gurney on top of three or four seats that had been just, you know, folded down on a commercial flight and had my own little curtain and everything. It's the most comfortable flight I'd ever been on.

Right.

It was perfect. But yeah, flew me directly to LAX or connected to lax and then went directly to Casa Kalina for an additional six weeks of care after that.

Good.

Because, yeah, still at that point I could barely do anything.

So the time we have left, kind of an update on, you know, let's fast forward a bit to, you know, kind of where life is now and what helped you make that transition to.

I know there was so much on your mind and a lot of it's just time has to go by and you have to kind of, you know, accept it all and go through those stages and then physical issues are making an improvement all along that way. So, I mean, is that still happening?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I don't think it really stops. There's Always a little bit of improvement. There's always, you know, I set goals for myself.

I try to become a little bit more independent a little bit at a time. I, you know, just. I. I recently found out about a tidy board. It's like a little cutting board with a.

A little metal piece that folds out, and it's got these little containers that you can slip into it.

So when you're cutting, you can just kind of, you know, scoot all that stuff into these little containers, which was kind of genius for me because I tried to do. I want to help my wife out when she's cooking, but, you know, okay, so I got all this stuff that I cut on the cutting board.

I can't pick it up and put it into a bowl.

Yeah.

So I'm done with this.

I'm done with the carrots, babe. You know, now I can just screw everything in there. And he folds up, and I feel like I'm helping. So little things like that.

Yeah.

And that's great for your mental state of mind, isn't it? Just. I feel an accomplishment. And you're more independent. You're helping.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, we're. I'm semi independent in the shower. I can kind of do most of it, except for my legs and my back.

And I can fold laundry. The more I do it, the quicker it gets. It still takes me four to five times as long as it used to, but I can, you know, like you said that.

Yeah.

Participating in all that.

I can drive now. That took a while to get the car to a point, or we bought a van, and to get everything adapted was an ordeal.

But I'm driving and I'm independent, so, yeah, everything is getting better very slowly, a little bit at a time. So. But, you know, always dealing with the mental part of it, like, always dealing with the emotional side of it.

And that's something I noticed with a lot of people who've been injured. And there's like this. This kind of cloud hanging over. Over a lot of us and especially a lot of the quads. We're just like.

We just look a little bit more tired than everybody else. It's weird, you know, I look at pictures of myself and I'm like. My eyes are always half closed.

I don't know what that is.

I didn't feel that way, but I look like them.

Yeah, exactly. And I need a lot more sleep. You know, it's just my. Physiologically, I have a completely different human being.

And just, like, accepting that and learning how to deal with that, learning with the, what the limitations are and then being in the middle of my life. You know, people talk about midlife crisis all the time and reinventing yourself and then this happens.

And, you know, you're not only just kind of trying to change careers, you're also really trying to reinvent yourself with fraction of the ability that you had before the accident. So it's, there's a lot of, you know, emotional repercussions that we, that I tried to, to kind of mitigate and, and just cope with.

So, so what helped you with that?

You know, one of the things that.

We really try to do at the podcast is.

Yeah.

Is make you.

Even if you just get your, you know, you just get your community from listening to us, at least if we drop a few nuggets when you listen this hour, maybe.

Yeah, that's always been my goal is to, I, I think it's, it's, you know, two edged, you know, I think it helps the storyteller tell the tale to maybe move you forward emotionally and your mental health and all that. And obviously I think it helps other people who are going through the same thing to feel that they're not alone.

So, yeah, that's our mantra these days is find your community. Right.

I love that. Yeah.

What advice do you give? Yeah, I mean, everybody's different, but yeah,.

You know, I, I think that I always try to tell people to give themselves a little bit of grace. I think we tend to really be hard on ourselves and that's never helpful.

I think it's, it's important to really, you know, take a deep breath and just try to be present and, and know that things will take time. So try to be a little bit more patient and then also to, to know that it does get better, things will get better inevitably.

It's, that's, that's the one thing that was really hard for me to picture when I first became injured is like, what, what do I have to live for now? You know, like, how can this possibly, how can my life possibly be good again? And as time passes, it does.

You know, you can, it's amazing what the human spirit can achieve, what we can do and you know, and, and how kind of beautiful life is. I get to see the, really the best of humanity.

Like, I get to experience people's, you know, really some, their profound goodwill, which is very moving.

You know, friends and family have, you know, showed up, they've been supportive and I found, you know, people like you and I've found organizations like Triumph. Who dedicate their existence to helping people who have gone through something for nothing more than just, like, you know, the. The goodwill of it.

And it's.

It's.

It's really. It's humanizing, it's unifying, It's. It's a really beautiful thing. So, you know, it's hard. It's. You know, there's no doubt. There's no doubt.

I'm not trying to paint this as, like, wow, this is all roses and everything.

This is.

This is really difficult. And it continues to be. It continues to be challenging. It continues to be really frustrating.

But, you know, like you said, being able to talk about it and having a community is incredibly important.

Yeah. Well, you know, as you tell your story, you know, you're. You're painting a pretty bleak picture at the beginning.

And, you know, here you are, you know, now, four years into it, feeling like you've made a lot of gain and still more to come, and you're going to work on it. Yeah, yeah. And so with Fry of. You know, they do a lot of things, so many things, but, you know, a lot of it is centered around adaptive sports.

So did you find a sport that you liked and.

Yeah, absolutely. It took me a minute. You know, the adaptive sports festivals, they have. Are. Are great. They're also very. It's like a.

It took me a minute to kind of just sink in and be like, okay, this is where I'm at now. This is. You know, you see a lot of people in wheelchairs all the time. Of a sudden, it's like, holy crap, this is. This is real. It got real.

But I immediately started. I just gravitated towards wheelchair rugby, and that's a really popular sport.

Yeah.

So.

And then for quads, it's great because it's really the only one that we can compete in. You know, that's just. It's just for quads. So it was a sport for me.

And as soon as I started driving, I was able to drive myself to practices every week. And that's where I started kind of progressing a lot more. And. And that's really.

Yeah.

Helped me a lot.

You found your people.

Yeah, yeah, I did. And I found something I can sink my teeth into and I can train for it. I can look forward to. It's. It's. I look forward to that practice every week.

You know, if I. If we don't have practice for whatever reason, it's. It's a disappointment.

And there's opportunities to compete as well as, you know, so that's that's all. It's all good. It's all positive stuff, and it's super.

Good for my health. It's incredibly good for health. Like that.

Harsh that. That really intense cardio workout has been really positive.

Good, good. Well, thank you for taking the time to come and chat with us and share your story.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you for allowing me this opportunity.

And we'll see you at a sporting event here soon. I'm sure.

That sounds great.

Yep.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you.

Each week on Walk and Roll Live, we share honest and open stories of people living with a disability.

The surgeon who did my knee surgery. This was again, emergency surgery in Fountain Valley. And luck of the draw, I get Dr. Grant Robichaux.

And there was a surgeon out of Newport who he and his girlfriend were accused of of drugging women and doing things to them. And by August, the news of him being arrested had become public.

Join us weekly for another powerful episode, Walk and Roll Live. Wherever you get your podcasts. Life Limitless. Subscribe now. From the agyar professional training studios.

You're listening to walk and roll live disability stories.

All right, it is story time, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate all of our guests who come on here and share their stories with us. The worst day of their life. He probably could make a case for that. And definitely a dark time in their lives.

And they come here and have an open and honest conversation with us. I can't thank them enough.

So now you've made it through the story, and you see why Doug used his little guest hook to find Arthur. And Arthur has quite the story. I am impressed. And I cannot imagine what it is to be injured when you're not in your home country.

Like, my brain was like, bam. Like w. I mean, so many stories we hear, and it's here.

And, you know, you still have to be life flighted somewhere, but, like, have to spend months in some other country's rehab system, then figure out with your credit card company how to get home.

Yeah. To be away from your support team. You know, I'm sure a few people came to join them, but, you know, that's.

That's the hardest part sometimes of recovery is sometimes being isolated in the hospital.

Mental health of it and all the things, right.

People have lives that they've got to leave, you know, as much as they want to spend all day with you, but, you know, so to have a half a world away, for sure. And then I like what he's doing now, too. You know, they Got the van and they're just cruising around and, you know.

Yeah.

I think that's kind of in us, all of us. I think on some levels, the wanderlust.

You haven't lost the wanderlust because the way you function through life changed a bit. And that's nice because I think that there are people who like whatever happens. Right.

And then they're like, oh, now this is the stopping point of my life. And now this is. This is it. Right. And Arthur's not really saying that. He's like, wow, this is different.

And, you know, sounds like he has such a tremendous partner who, like, held it together all through the injury, but has continued to hold it together and be the spirit that she is and was. That's just cool.

I think they grasped it like a opportunity, you know, if you get tied down to a job. You know, if he hadn't been injured, he might have been, you know, like. Like me. I mean, I'm. I'm not that kind of. I mean, it's in there.

I mean, I would. That's romantically, it would be great to do.

I'm way too logical and practical and all those boring things, you know, so I would probably would never do it. But, yeah, he seized upon the opportunity, you know, that he was a little freer.

Yeah.

Post injury. So good for him. Good for him.

Yeah.

I'm glad he came on and told his story next week. I was going to write that down. Oh, it's Susie Goldshawn again. Met her at one of the sports events.

And, you know, I know I've said it a thousand times, but, you know, there's just all these stories are so different, even within the same diagnosis. She is a. She's a quad. But you wouldn't know it if you saw her. You know, she. You know, she.

She walks, which is very unusual, you know, so, you know, we'll get into that whole story and why and you know, how she's different. It can do that. And just her whole spirit. I mean, she's a. She's a go getter, huh?

She's a unique, fun person.

So we'll. We'll bring our conversation with her to you next week. Thank you for listening again. Lots of stuff going up on the.

The website, you know, the resources page, and new stuff coming all the time. If you have any suggestions, please let us know and we'll add it up there or any other events that are happening. We'll put that up there as well.

All right, so thank you. Thank you for listening. We appreciate it very much. I'm your host, Doug Benson, along with Addie Rich from the Agar Professional Training Studio.

This has been Rock n Roll Live Disability Stories. Life limitless.

Walk and roll. Life's the best walk in Ro.