Canada’s Turner races to gold five years after crash
There were dark days when Tyler Turner wished he’d died in the skydiving accident that cost him his legs.
Because then he wouldn’t be facing the decision of whether to push forward, or simply exist.
On Monday, the 33-year-old from Campbell River, B.C., captured Canada’s first Paralympic snowboarding gold medal, racing to victory in snowboard cross at the Beijing Games.
And moments before standing atop the podium, a highlight of a six-medal day for Canada, Turner reflected on how far he’d come.
“It’s kind of crazy to look back,” he said. “You don’t realize it while you’re in it. But then you look back. Four-and-a-half years later … holy smokes, the progression is unbelievable.”
Turner built a commanding lead in Monday’s big final at Genting Snow Park to win gold. Moments earlier, Lisa DeJong, of Sherwood Park, Alta., captured silver in the women’s race.
In cross-country, Brian McKeever easily defended his title in the men’s 20-kilometre race, winning a whopping 14th Paralympic gold and 18th medal. Natalie Wilkie won the women’s 15K race, while teammate Brittany Hudak raced to bronze. And Alana Ramsay earned bronze in Alpine’s super combined.
Turner is a lifelong lover of gravity sports. He was a skydiving instructor with years of experience when he landed hard in a jump from 10,000 feet in 2017. He’s not sure what went wrong. He has no memory of the crash, nor the final minute before impact.
“Which I’m OK with,” he said. “I have no PTSD. I’m quite lucky in a way.”
But the months that followed were tough. He was in a coma for five days, and suffered a brain injury. His pelvis and spine were surgically fixated. He initially lost his right leg, but had his badly damaged left leg amputated about a year after the crash.
Depression, he said, was a “deep dark hole.” But the longing to snowboard, surf — and even skydive again — tugged at him. Plus, he wanted to prove people wrong.
Turner chronicled his progression in an Instagram story, beginning on Day 1 after his second amputation when, while still hooked up to an I.V., he popped a wheelie in the hospital hallway.
On Day 510, he was able to snowboard 10 feet, using poles for support. The pain, he said, was intense.
On Day 642, after being helped up onto his board by a friend, he rode a full run at K3 Cat Ski in Revelstoke, B.C., where he’d worked for years.
“I got back as early as humanly possible, because I love snowboarding, it’s my entire life,” Turner said. “And so, I pushed it pretty early. It was extremely painful, but also really rewarding to realize early on that I was still going to be capable of doing it. And then with a little bit of patience, I was able to work through getting the proper legs, proper prosthetics and have the right amount of healing time where, a couple of seasons after, I was able to really get back on the level I wanted to.”
In 2020, Turner became the first bilateral amputee to fly a wingsuit, calling the high-adrenalin pursuit the closest thing to being a bird.
His crash and his recovery, not only of his body, but of his love for life, was captured in longtime friend Lara Shea’s documentary “Sixty Seconds,” which premiered in November.
Turner cringes at the word “inspiration.”
“The ‘I word’ we call it in our house,” he said.
But he hopes his journey to the top of the Paralympic podium can help others see the possibilities.
“That is one of the coolest parts is that, as much as I don’t like the word inspiration, the ability to inspire people who are in a place that I was four years ago, which is a really dark place, I’m super aware of how that feels. And I had people that went out of their way, from athletes from the Canadian team, who helped to inspire me early on to pursue what I’m doing now.
“I think the word is overused, but if I can help to inspire people that are in that position, then that is the right way to use that word.”