Johnson has no memory of his first accident. All he remembers is a warm October evening. Johnson was 21 years old, smart, handsome, well-liked, playing American soccer and acting in theater are outstanding, to know that 21 is the best time of life, and just graduated from the prestigious Columbia University School of Drama, can be said to be full of vitality, the future looks bright.
Johnson didn't see a thing when a heavy truck pulled out on Third Avenue. The only thing he remembers is waking up in an intensive care unit with his left calf cut off.
For the next six years, Johnson did everything he could to become the best one-legged man in the world. He suffered a lot of pain during his recovery, but never complained, and finally got over it and started performing on stage and TV, and had a number of girlfriends.
Less than a year after losing his left leg, he began practicing running, and soon was running 10K races regularly. He went on to run the New York Marathon and the Boston Marathon, where he broke the disability record and became the fastest one-legged runner in the world.
Then he moved on to the triathlon. That's an extremely tough sport in itself, plus he only had one leg and had to swim 3.85 kilometers, bike 180 kilometers and run a 42-kilometer marathon in one breath. It was certainly a huge challenge for Johnson.
On an afternoon in May 1994, Johnson rode his bike at 60 kilometers per hour in a triathlon in Utah, leading a large group of runners through the town, with the crowd cheering. Suddenly, Johnson heard the crowd screaming. He turned his head, only to see a black minivan coming straight at him.
In general, the road around the race course has been almost completely blocked, several did not block the intersection is also guarded by the police, no one knows what is the cause of this minivan broke in.
Johnson remembers the crash all too well. He remembers the crowd screaming, and he remembers his body flying across the road and crashing head-on into a lamppost on the side of the road, snapping his cervical vertebrae. He also remembers being put into an ambulance and then passing out.
When Johnson woke up after emergency spinal surgery, he found himself in the trauma ward, unable to move. He vividly remembers the nurses around him, each with tears in their eyes, repeatedly saying, "We're so sorry for your loss."
Johnson quadriplegic, then only 28 years old, 28 years old has tasted the cold and warmth of the world.
Johnson's limbs are lost due to broken cervical vertebrae, but still preserves a small amount of nerve activity, so that he can move a little - arms can be raised a little bit, sitting in a wheelchair can be tilted forward, the hands can do some simple movements, and the legs can sometimes be lifted by two or three centimeters.
Johnson was a little excited to learn that he could still feel his limbs. Because it means that he has the possibility of independent life, without having to be taken care of 24 hours a day. After grueling workouts, Johnson, who considers himself "very lucky," gradually progressed to the point where he could bathe, dress, eat, and even drive a specially adapted car. Doctors are amazed, yes, who would not be amazed at the strength of this life.
The hospital's treatment of patients with severe spinal injuries is akin to torture. They first put a head ring on Johnson: it was a steel ring, screwed directly to the skull, and then the head ring's metal braces were attached to metal plates clamped to the sides of Johnson's body to hold his spine in place. Only local anesthesia was available for the installation of the head ring, and Johnson screamed in pain as the doctor screwed the screws into Johnson's forehead.
Nurses often came to draw Johnson's blood, insert a catheter into his bladder, or tighten the screws in the head ring. Every time someone touched him, he screamed in pain. Until this moment, he felt he had no self, no past, no future and no hope.
Two months later, the head rings were removed and Johnson was transferred to a rehab center in Colorado. On his floor were patients who had recently become quadriplegic or paralyzed. He realized there were so many people who shared his fate. The situation in front of him was not unfamiliar: disability, pain, loss of mobility, patience and exercise - all of which he had experienced.
So his old spirit of resilience, of never giving in to fate, came back. He said to himself, "You've been there, you know what to do. You have to work out desperately, not afraid of suffering, not discouraged, and must leave this hellish place."
In the months that followed, Johnson became combative again and recovered faster than anyone expected.
Just six months after breaking his neck, he was back in the community, living on his own again, and about six months after that, he gave a rousing speech at a triathlon conference, titled "People with Disabilities Can Do It," that had everyone rallying around him afterward, praising him for his bravery. "Johnson is good!" Everyone said in unison.
Even when the recovery process starts well, sooner or later the patient hits a wall: the recovery stops and the harsh reality emerges. Johnson hit that wall. He had recovered what he could, but no matter how hard he tried, there were some facts he could not change: he could never raise his arm above his head again, and he could never walk again.
Johnson realized this, and the ever-resilient Johnson was discouraged.
In 1998, Johnson received a $4.8 million settlement and decided to move to Hawaii. At the time, he told friends that he was going there to write his memoirs. Only he knew for sure that it was purely for escapism. Johnson had a secret he didn't want anyone to know: he was addicted to drugs. About two years after he broke his neck, he met a woman who handed him some cocaine and said sympathetically, "Try this. You've suffered enough, this will help ease your pain, and no one will blame you for doing it." Johnson thought to himself, "Yeah, how many people have been through so much devastation, they'll surely understand."
Early one morning, after taking drugs, Johnson spun his wheelchair into the middle of a silent highway. He vividly remembers running a marathon on this highway.
Johnson, who had won here, was on the road wondering where to get some more cocaine. He knew it was time to make a decision: to die or to live? "I'm only 30, I've got a long way to go, and I don't want to leave this world yet," he thought, "and I certainly don't want to be quadriplegic, but since I can't change that. There's only one thing left for me to do, other than accept the fact, and that's to live a good life."
Johnson didn't know what to do next, but one thing was clear: if he continued to use cocaine, he would be hopeless. So he tried to look at his problems from a different perspective: "Maybe what happened to me wasn't a bad thing, but a wonderful reward from God for the opportunity to really know myself. It was God's will: to make things happen and make me strong."
Since then, he has stayed away from cocaine for good.
Johnson currently lives in Washington. On nice mornings, he'll get out of bed, insert a catheter, take a shower, get dressed, and leave his place. It doesn't take him three hours to do all this. Then he goes to the gym for an hour or two of exercise, such as walking in the water and riding an exercise bike.
He also buries himself in writing papers on the subject of disabled people in the history of mythology.
Physical disabilities aren't scary, it's the mental ones that are. The reason why many disabled people can do things that even normal people may not be able to do is mainly because these disabled people are physically disabled, while those normal people, although physically healthy, but no longer have the will to fight and be strong.
Strong adversity