BACK FROM THE ABYSS
Skater survives crash, stroke
Denny Morrison narrowly escaped death in a May 2015 motorcycle crash that broke his femur, punctured his lung, turned his knee into “mashed potatoes,” fractured a bone near the bottom of his spine, bruised his liver and kidneys, and left him with a concussion.
Less than a year later, in April, he suffered a stroke in Salt Lake City at the end of a gruelling three-week bike trek on the Arizona Trail.
At age 31, he takes blood thinners and battles crippling fatigue. When he gets tired towards the end of the day, the four-time Olympic medallist fights for words on the tip of his tongue.
But Morrison steadfastly refuses to use any of his challenges as an excuse for failing to realize his potential on the speedskating oval.
In a scene fitting a made-forTV movie, the Fort St. John, B.C., native raced last Friday for the first time since suffering the stroke. He set a personal best of three minutes, 42.21 seconds over 3,000 metres at Calgary’s Olympic Oval Fall Classic.
Not bad for a guy many assumed would never skate competitively again.
Morrison credits the quick thinking of his girlfriend, fellow national team skater Josie Spence, for saving his life when the stroke hit in Salt Lake City.
Spence noticed the symptoms — the facial drooping, the slurring of speech and the fact his left flipflop kept falling off — and texted the team doctor, who ordered the pair to go straight to hospital. Medical scans confirmed Morrison suffered a brain blood clot and carotid artery dissection, the most common cause of stroke in young adults. The arterial damage can occur in motor vehicle collisions, and doctors believe there’s a link between the motorcycle crash and the stroke.
On June 15, Morrison quietly underwent surgery to insert two stents in his damaged carotid artery.
“I had to build up the courage to be able to push myself hard enough to get to my maximum heart rate,” he said. “I had to bring back in my no excuses philosophy. The reason that I couldn’t get my heart rate up — that’s past. It’s done. It’s over. It’s behind me. And now there’s no excuses again.”
Morrison adopted the noexcuse philosophy as a New Year’s resolution in 2012 partially in response to his disappointing performance in the individual events at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Three months later, he won the second individual world title of his career.
At the 2014 Sochi Olympics, speedskater Gilmore Junio became a household name in Canada for voluntarily giving his spot in the men’s 1,000 metres to Morrison, who went on to win a silver medal.
Come the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Morrison hopes to inspire Canadians with a message of perseverance and determination.
“There’s a lot of cases where people limit themselves,” Morrison said. “They’re like, ‘I twisted my ankle. I probably should never play basketball ever again.’ And I don’t know what advice they got from a doctor. I don’t know their exact situation. But that’s an option to just choose to never try again.”