On May 7, 1995, in Panama City, FL., I broke my neck in a WaveRunner accident. This came after an enjoyable weekend with my best friend, his daughter and three other buddies. It was Sunday, we had checked out of the hotel and were going to start back home. It was such a pretty day that we decided to stick around for a couple more hours to get in all of the fun that we could. One of us spotted WaveRunner rentals - it seemed like a good idea at the time.

My best friend and I spent a fun half-hour on the ocean. However, until the waves in the ocean crest, you can be hidden from view. We didn’t even see each other until it was too late. When we collided, his wave runner went high and mine went underneath. The bad news was that my neck was broken at C-1 and at C-7. I had a closed head injury and had drowned. The good news is that my friend was not hurt and was able to tow me to shore. When the ambulance got there, the paramedics got me breathing, but I remained unconscious. I was transported to Bay Medical Center where I had good luck again. I am told that there are only a few doctors in the United States who could have handled this injury, and one of the most prominent, Dr. Merle Stringer, was at Bay Medical Center.

When the coma ended, two months later, the hospital records indicate that I was "very agitated" and I managed to refracture my neck at C-1. They restrained me, medicated me and opened me up again. The doctors took a piece of my hipbone and fused C-1 together with C-2. They then placed me in a drug-induced coma for another month. They brought me out of this slowly - my friends and family tell me we were talking for weeks before I have any memory of talking to them. I battled with pneumonia and with a staph infection. My left side was paralyzed and the doctors thought this might be a permanent condition. But I was alive thanks, in part, to the fact that I had been working out in the weight room for three months prior to the accident and I had a spinal column twice the normal size.

Later that summer, I was transferred to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, one of the nation’s leading spinal injury and head trauma centers in the United States. I began rehabilitative therapy with Dr. Donald Leslie and a team of remarkable therapists. With my left side useless, I started to learn to function one-handed, and resented every second of it. If I learned to cope one-handed, it would be like accepting my condition, and I did not want to accept it. I was going to stand on my feet even if I did have to hop around.

On day, as the nurses helped me dress and undress, I thought I could feel them touching my left hand. The feeling I had was very vague and I could not move under my own power. However, I figured if I had feeling in my hand, I should be able to move it. If I could move it, I knew I could make it stronger. This began the very frustrating work of reawakening my left side. The doctor’s new prognosis was that I would make a full recovery. This was good news, but with my head foggy from the brain injury, I wasn’t taking anything for granted. I wanted to recover as much as I could, as fast as I could. Despite the doctor’s good news, I was afraid that he was wrong. The prognosis had changed once and I was not at all sure that it would not change again.

While working with the therapists, I challenged everything. I not only wanted to know what I should do, but I wanted to know why. I wanted to know exactly how the body worked, especially the process of rehabilitation. I read everything they gave, and everything else I could get my hands on. Looking back on it, I must have pestered the hell out of them.

Progress came very slowly. (I now realize that I was lucky to have had a brain injury during this process. If I had been in my right mind, I might have gone crazy.) As difficult as it was, I tried to think my way out of this mess. All I was able to come up with was to just keep going. If I had any deficiencies when this was over, it was not going to be for lack of effort. I could see progress literally every day, but oh how slow it was. As I was unhooked from the halo that was screwed into my head, I was very stiff throughout my entire body, especially my left side that was just beginning to move through a very limited range of motion. Making my left side move was very difficult. To make my left side move, I had to think – "I want to raise my arm" – then I would have to concentrate on the appropriate muscles to elicit movement. Through trial and error, I went about the process of learning to move. We take movement for granted, because we have done it for so long without effort.

Shortly thereafter, I took my first steps. It was on the parallel bars and I could only hold on with my right arm. I will never forget that day– it was a feeling of exhilaration and a sense of accomplishment. It was then that I knew that I was going to win this battle. That night, lying in my bed, I had a talk with myself. This was going to be the toughest thing I had ever done. There were going to be set backs and slow progress was a given. I had to keep going and stay positive. Negativity feeds on itself, and it won’t help you climb the ladder of success. I made a concerted effort to be positive in everything. After a few weeks of being positive, even when I did not want to be, it became natural and felt right. I have never looked back.

After I left the hospital, I had a new series of challenges to face. I had lost everything I had, including my house. I lived with different people for a while, but this was difficult. Some people tried to do too much for me and I was afraid they would become a crutch for me. I did not have a job, so I worked with my brother installing floor covering. I only did what was necessary to survive. The rest of the time I devoted to recovery. I walked farther every time I walked and pushed myself harder every time I did anything. When I finally settled down with friends I had known before the accident, things became familiar and comfortable, as if some parts of my life were returning to normal. It was at this point that I began walking great distances. On these long walks, I had plenty of time to think. I decided I would get out of the floor covering business. I had disliked that business from the first day and that job was tough on my body, so I took the plunge.

I had also returned to working out at the gym. I was able to regain the 70 pounds I had lost in the hospital. I liked the changes in my body and thought about entering the fitness profession. Over the next 2-3 years, I worked at several fitness locations and saw the good and the bad. I saw those people who were truly interested in fitness and those who were in it only for the money. I learned how many fitness businesses are like sinking ships. On top of all of that, the amount of fitness misinformation given out was astounding. At one point, I had to go back to the floor covering business in order to survive, but even that had its benefits. The work was excellent therapy and my manual dexterity improved.

While I worked in the floor covering business, I made plans to re-enter the gym scene. I wanted to train people, so I did research on personal training certification. I ordered texts from many of the biggest certification agencies. The one that impressed me the most was the ISSA text. It was easy to understand and made sense. As well, the staff at the Shepherd Center recommended ISSA. Having fallen in love with science during my rehabilitation, it was also the logical choice. So, I became certified by the International Sports Sciences Association. The day I quit the floor covering business, a waiter at a restaurant I frequented asked to buy some training. I took it as an omen, and there has been no looking back.

I began training at the very gym I had been working out at since my accident - Stack’s gym – a family owned and operated facility in Acworth. Many of my friends saw the progress I made and asked me to train them. I set my prices low in order to draw in as many clients as I could to get a grip on how to train and interact with many different types of personalities and body types. While I was in and out of Stack’s over a few years, it is now my permanent training home. It is a friendly environment that motivates people to achieve their full potential.

During this time, I kept my license as a tennis pro valid with the USPTR and had been hitting balls for a couple of years to regain my ease of movement. I fell in love with the game of tennis again after having burned out as a competitive, ranked junior tennis player. I noticed that the extra muscle helped me to play better. After testing myself in many areas, I realized that if I had done weight training at a young age, it might have significantly raised my playing level. I truly realized then that more muscle, if trained properly, is better in every case.

I believe that what I have learned will help any athlete. I trained a young wrestler who went on that very year to win a state wresting championship. My goal is to work with professional tennis players as a trainer. Realizing that it is very difficult to work at this level without a college degree, I have gone back to college. So far so good, but it will take several years to finish.

Currently, I have five very dedicated training clients and a significant number of tennis students. I go to school about 8 hours per week, have homework to do and I eat up a lot of time in travel time I still have a few hours to pursue new ways to reach my goal – I know that sometimes competence and hard work are not enough.

Sometimes I reflect on the whole experience, to gather what I have learned. While this experience was very tough, it made me a much better person. No one knows how long he or she will be on this earth, so we had better start enjoying it. I will always try to experience as much as life has to offer. Even the little things we take for granted seem terrific to me now. Like someone said, "get busy living or get busy dying."