How to adapt and thrive post-SCI: Austin Price’s story

Austin is pushing other boundaries as well, as he and I discuss the other side of spinal cord injury. Vulnerability. Here we go. Welcome, Austin. Thank you.

Thank you for having me. I’m so pleased to have you and to see you. And for those who can’t see you, I am actually looking at the top of your shaped head with a very interesting tattoo. It’s actually a Harley-Davidson motor. It says can’t be killed on it.

I got it after my motorcycle accident in 2020 as kind of just a, you know, I’ve been through not only just this motorcycle accident, but when I was 13, I was in a dirt bike accident. We don’t know if it was a compression tear or something sliced my leg open, but it was millimeters away from severing the main artery in my leg. And then I healed from that pretty quick, you know, bounce back. A year later, I went on a snowboarding trip with my family in Colorado, came back. We were less than a mile from the house and our car got stuck in the snow.

I got out to push it. I got hit by a new driver doing 50 miles an hour, sent me flying through the air, snapped my tibia, fibula, broke my knee on the other side. And I shouldn’t have lived through that because when I got out of the car, I started pushing. I heard a horn honk and my first reaction was to jump. So I just jumped straight up.

If I didn’t jump, it would have crushed my hips. And that impact would have just completely destroyed my insides. Fast forward 14 years later, I get in a motorcycle accident that gave me my spinal cord injury. I had a severe traumatic brain injury, two skull fractures, 13 broken ribs, 11 facial fractures, broken jaw, snapped my left hip and my femur actually fell out of the socket. I lost a massive amount of blood.

I had to get five units of blood back in the trauma center. And one of the first things I remember is the doctor saying to me is, I don’t know how you’re talking to me right now. He said, and my helmet was sitting right next to me, which I actually have here, which people won’t be able to see. But as you can see, it completely caved in the back of my helmet, broke the front of it. And the doctor said, I’ve never seen a helmet look like that.

And somebody be speaking to me. So, you know, I got this tattoo just to, I shouldn’t be here. And so I got the tattoo. I was just like, “I can’t be killed. ” And I don’t want to jinx that knock on wood, but, you know, I’ve been through and seen some things that we shouldn’t be talking today.

Well, it’s a blessing to me and to our listeners that we are talking today, and that a human being can say that you shouldn’t be here, and yet you are. There’s something very elevating, even mystical and spiritual. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

You know, and I really look at everything I do in my life now, just because of these experiences that I’ve had, especially after my spinal cord injury, that this is just my second chance on life. So I’m going to try and do everything I can to experience new things that I may have been afraid to or hesitant about and just really try and make the second, third, or fourth chance that I have even, you know, really as good as it possibly can. You know, I want to take care of my health, which I’ve been working super hard at this last couple of years, especially. And I want to try and help people motivate, inspire, you know, whether you’ve been through something life-changing or not, like, change is possible. Yeah.

Yeah, it’s an interesting juxtaposition how life can change in the blink of an eye, as it did for you on more than one occasion, and then also how life can change. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. You know, these extreme accidents that you have undergone and survived in your life that you just laid out for us.

Can you give us a sense of, like, who you are? You know, who Austin Price is? What’s the essence of you? Before my accident, I was a FedEx delivery driver out in Northern California in the rural areas. So I wasn’t going to be going back to that anytime soon.

So, you know, I just want to try and supplement some income. So I started off with just selling stickers here and there and then eventually went into t-shirts and, you know, it’s nothing big at all. But that kind of sparked my interest in graphic design. I wanted to be able to design T-shirts, logos, websites, things like that. Stuff that I could do from home.

Or if my fiance and I wanted to go traveling, you know, I could do remotely, just to kind of help give us some freedom because, you know, a lot of my freedoms were taken away by my injury. I love being outdoors growing up 30 to 45 minutes from Lake Tahoe. We have tons of mountain ski resorts, bike trails, hiking, some of the most beautiful places in the country is in my backyard. And there’s a lot of dirt bike riders in the area and things like that, sporting events. I grew up loving things with motors, you know, things that give you get that adrenaline pumping.

Yeah. I guess so, because you are an extreme sport junkie. Yeah. You know, it sounds like you were born into that topography and that environment. I was.

You know, I grew up in a religion with my parents that I didn’t get to go do, you know, organized sports or anything with the rest of the kids. And growing up an only child, you know, I was like, well, I want to do something fun. I initially got into skateboarding and BMX bikes and things like that. And then once my dad got me my first dirt bike, that just started my whole love for things with wheels and motors. And it kind of just all progressed from there.

Well, hang on. How did that progression with your parents restricting you from organized sports, but your dad buying you a BMX bike? So my dad left the religion when they got divorced when I was five. I got to see two different sides, you know, with my mother in the religion, my dad outside. I got to experience different things, which kind of helped mold me into who I am today.

So I don’t want to call any experiences, you know, bad experiences, things, you know, just in life happen. And my parents had a relatively good relationship after the divorce, which, you know, really helped with, you know, them raising me. And I wasn’t in a very, like, toxic co-parenting situation. Yeah, that’s a blessing to not be a kid in the middle of a toxic parent. Yeah, so that was nice.

And my dad kind of lived out in the desert, so we could just ride our dirt bikes out from his house. That’s actually how I ended up getting in that first dirt bike accident. We just rode from his house. I crashed. I actually had to get back on the bike and ride to an urgent care.

Oh my lord. Yeah. Out in Dayton, Nevada, there’s just an urgent care right out in the middle, literally nowhere, basically. Your dad wasn’t able to take you on his bike? No, so we were pretty far out.

And when I crashed, he saw that there was a tear in my pants. He was like, “Okay, we’re just going to get back on the bike. We’re going to go straight here. We were only a couple miles away. ” And so I did it, get there, we get to the urgent care, and they were like, “We need to care flight you now.

” So they got me hooked up on IV, got me stable, care flight, took me to Carson Tahoe Hospital. And then I had surgery. I was in, I think, the OR within an hour. Wow. It’s amazing what doesn’t necessarily show on the outside with regard to injuries on the inside.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was another blessing. How old were you then at that first major? I think I was, I think, 12 or 13 when that happened.

Yeah, 12 or 13 on a dirt bike. I was picturing you with your dad there. You know, I’m wondering now with the spinal cord injury, where your other injuries as devastating as they were, it sounds like, at the time, were not as serious or devastating as a spinal cord injury. How has it influenced all of your extreme sports and outdoor activities, this injury? It hasn’t shied me away from anything.

It just makes me look at things differently. Like I have to basically adapt. Everything that I’ve come to realize with spinal cord injury and especially sports is you just need to find a different way to do it. Anything is possible, especially with the right mindset. And I think mindset is a huge thing.

If you got the right mindset, you know, and you have a good support system, or even if you don’t have a good support system, if you want to do something, you’ll find a way to do it. And with spinal cord injury, you know, everything we do from sports to showering to going to the bathroom to going to the movies. We all have to just adapt in one way or another. I was talking to somebody the other day and they’re like, “Oh, how did you do this? ” I’m like, “I don’t know, you just kind of got a MacGyver it.

” That’s really what spinal cord injury is. Yeah, there might be a lot of people who are not smiling at that to really know what like that expression to MacGyver it, actually. Yeah. I mean, you gotta sometimes just little things like reaching something up high. You gotta use a grabber or like at the grocery store.

I keep this little extendable metal baton that I can keep in my little pouch on the back of my wheelchair that when I’m at the grocery store and I can’t reach something, I just open it, slide it off the top shelf. Like get smart. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, I’m going to start calling you Max.

Yeah. You know, it is, I think, just extraordinary how much it takes for anyone who is spinal cord injured to adapt and to MacGyver. Yeah. And it does take a real mindset to MacGyver. Yeah, and I’m part of the High Fives Foundation.

Back in October last year, I submitted for a grant for called a bowhead reach mountain bike. So it’s a three wheel e-bike, basically with a articulating frame, meaning that if I pull this little pin out of the frame, it then allows the frame to articulate side to side. So you can turn it, you can go for big rocks and stuff like that. And one of the biggest things that they always say is adapt and overcome or adapt and destroy is their new thing. So that when I first met them, that adapt and overcome really like that clicked in my head.

And I think I met them for the first time beginning of 2022. And it’s when I really started to get involved with them. And just seeing all these other incredible athletes that are part of the foundation and just the support and community that they have has really helped me change my outlook on how I approach things with a spinal cord injury. You know I want to be able to hear more, I’m sure our listeners do, too, about Hi-Fi’s Foundation and that it is about adaptive sports yeah for people who have been injured as you are and as our son is and so many, you know, 18,000 spinal cord injuries a year in the United States. It’s just amazing what is available.

I’m so curious about what you said about your involvement with them has really helped you when you know you’re an individual rugged guy and yet it’s something about being with others who are also injured that’s influenced you in some way. I’m very curious about that. Yeah. You know, when I first got my spinal cord injury, just as everyone else does, you feel really alone. I’m sure I could speak for plenty of people, maybe not everybody, but a good majority of people’s STIs is you almost feel like your life is over and everything that you know about it, it’s over.

And when I was first in the ICU at Renown Regional, I was in the rehab. I got a. It was right during COVID, so I didn’t get to do a face-to-face with him, but I got a Skype call from Roy Tuscany. He’s the founder and CEO of High Five Foundation. And he sat there with me for an hour just answering my questions and letting me know about them and what they do.

And just so he was somebody to be there for me because everybody at the hospital, you can have your social workers and whatnot, but they only come at things from like a medical sense. And he came at me from a human being sense of somebody who has suffered a spinal cord injury. He had his injury in 2009 by overshooting a ski jump. He went 130 feet on a 100-foot jump, I believe. Wow.

And he became a quadriplegic. In 2009, he started Hi-Fi’s Foundation. Him and the foundation have helped thousands of people, you know, since its inception. And so that first meeting with somebody who had a spinal cord injury, that was such a pivotal role or part for me to be like, okay, like, it’s gonna be okay. There’s other people out there, you know?

And I didn’t initially start going with the foundation right then. Like, I was super nervous. I had no idea what to expect. You know, I am relatively a shy, introverted person. Especially back then, you know, just with all the uncertainties, really.

And then so after that, you know, I had that in the back of my mind. He gave me his phone number, told me I could call him, text him anytime. After that, you know, I didn’t really do much. You know, I got out of the rehab center, went home, was trying to get settled and figure out, you know, what my life was going to be like. When I got my injury, we lived in Midtown in Reno, which was just a bunch of, you know, older brick houses with, you know, stairs going up to him.

So when I got in my accident, my fiance had to try and find a house that was going to be accessible for us and for me. So while I was there, her and my friends found a new house, got us moved in, did all this stuff, just made sure I was comfortable. And then, you know, I was just doing physical therapy, occupational therapy at home. You know, I’m just not really doing a whole lot. You know, I wasn’t really involved with anything.

And then, you know, once I found High Fives Foundation back in 2022, is when I really got involved with them. It was a mountain bike day that they were hosting alongside with City of Reno adaptive program. So they took a bunch of bikes out to the small ski resort that has a really cool adaptive program. They have an adaptive mountain bike trail. They have a sit ski program.

So they’re really involved with the disabled community in our area. And getting to meet a bunch of these other high-fives athletes and other people who weren’t athletes, that was like my first really sense of community. Everyone’s really welcoming, you know, asking what happened, what level you are. It was really cool being able to talk with other people who understand what you’re going through. Whereas able-bodied people who aren’t injured have no idea, you know, what a bowel program is or things that come along with having a spinal cord injury.

Because, you know, a lot of people think, you know, you’re paralyzed. You just can’t feel your legs or you can’t walk when it’s such a multitude of other stuff. Yeah, such a multitude. You know, getting to talk with people at the foundation and the athletes sponsored by the foundation, it really just gave me hope. Like, it was that aha moment, like, my life’s not over.

I can still enjoy the things that I love to do. And that was the first time I had gotten back really doing anything outside of my wheelchair was when I got to get on this mountain bike. And I just remember sitting at the top of this trail. I was by myself for the first time in two years. And I was looking at this huge forest, the whole, I could oversee Reno and I was just by myself.

And it was such a free feeling. I thank them for giving me that opportunity to realize, like, I can do what I want. Every day since that day, I really just think about that. Like, I have a ton of bad days. I’m not going to sugarcoat it.

I still do. But there’s that little thing in the back of my head saying, like, you can do this. Just keep pushing. Find new ways. Yeah, adapt.

Yeah, adapt and overcome. Adapt and overcome. You know, it’s such a precious sharing and the aha that you had. And I think about the importance of Roy when you were in rehab, reaching in. Because so often, spinal cord injury being such an all-encompassing and devastating injury, you’re not reaching out.

We’re like, “Oh, here’s this person, here’s this place, and here’s other things. ” But he reached in exactly with that kind of a conversation. Yeah. He does that with a lot of people. He may be the founder, CEO, super busy guy, but he’s extremely compassionate and welcoming.

And like you said, he understands what you’re going through. And just as a little footnote, we’ve started a nonprofit as well called Blink of an Eye, when life changes in the blink of an eye. Yeah And our navigators are other spinal cord injured people and families, at least you know a number of years out from injury, whom we’re training in transformative mediation skills. But the most important aspect is who they are, and we reach in for that one-to-one conversation in that our area is the crisis time yeah to really help families through. You know, people don’t even think like perhaps what it took your fiance to realize, oh my gosh, we’ve got to move.

Oh my gosh, you know, Austin can’t help me with that move, right? Yeah, and I think that’s a huge thing is, you know, those first 24 hours, first 36, that first week, two weeks, first month, what to expect. And I think a lot of people really need to be educated on what to expect during those times. Yeah. Because they can tell you at the hospital, “You’re never going to walk again, this, that, blah, blah, blah, blah.

” But they don’t tell you everything else that comes with it. All the hardships after the hospital. Yeah. I just think it’d be really comforting in a time of distress for people to know what to expect because it’s such an unexpected thing. It’s a completely new life, literally in the blink of an eye.

Yeah, literally. And caregivers too, like people don’t realize how taxing that is. And seeing how much just how much it affected my fiance and family and the people around you that are helping you, like we need, I think, more recognition and support for the caregivers, especially during the first year, especially. Yeah, exactly. Especially the first year, because the changes and the upheaval is so monumental.

Yeah. I mean, even me just being a paraplegic, you know, I’ve got really good dexterity grip in my hands and stuff. And I’d like to think that I’m relatively independent now, but it took a lot of work to get to that, and I wouldn’t have been able to do it without her, her support, her family, you know, all my friends coming over while she’s at work to pick me up off the ground when I flipped out of my chair, you know? Exactly. Can we just give her a shout out right now?

Absolutely. Tell me her name. Her name is Mariah. She is a business owner. She’s an esthetician, so she does skincare, lashes, everything like that.

So on top of taking care of me, she had to put basically her business on hold. My accent was during COVID, so they were only allowing one person to be in the hospital with me. And then when I went into rehab, I was allowed one person for the entire stay. Not one person at a time, one person the entire stay. So she was my person.

She was there with me for the visiting hours every single day from, I think it was 3:00 p. m. to 8:00 p. m. .

And so she basically put her entire life, business, everything she’d worked for on hold to spend time with me, make sure I was comfortable, you know, come to my therapy appointments. She was there every step of the way, learning with me. And I think that’s I wouldn’t be where I’m at today without her. Well, let’s give Mariah a shout out and a big hug. Hey, Mariah, thank you.

Because we are so pleased to have Austin with us, and he might not be with us in the full embodied way that he is without your love and care and sacrifice. So thank you, Mariah. Yeah. She really is an incredible and great human being. I’m very lucky to have her in my life.

You are. And I think you’ve identified something that’s also really critical for understanding the ongoing progress for any person who has spinal cord injured, paraplegic, quadriplegic, whatever it is. And frankly, it’s just the recipe for human success, but we can’t really progress with just pure grit and determination. We really do need some type of a support structure. And if you didn’t have it when you were injured, it’s so important to create it.

I feel very fortunate that because we were together for, I think, a year and a half, possibly two years before my injury. I know a lot of people, you know, when they get injured, their spouses can’t handle it, they leave, and then they’re left on their own. And so It happens quite frequently. Yeah, more often than not. That’s the outcome of things.

And having going through this life-changing injury, like, you know, you already go through something so huge and then you lose your support system. Like, it’s devastating. I’ve talked to people who that’s happened to and multiple people. And also the age, oftentimes, it’s a spinal cord injury. These accidents typically happen to very healthy, vibrant, active men, you know, boys, young men, and men.

And then their friends are oftentimes in the path of going through school or going to new jobs or moving away, and then they might start their own families. And so it’s very easy and often to be left alone, if you will. Absolutely. It’s such a huge part of our recovery is having that support, whether it be spouse, family, friends, like just having somebody there, you know, educating them on your injury and just making sure people are informed. But also, you don’t want people to look at you like you’re somebody in a wheelchair.

You’re just this disabled person. ‘Cause yeah, we are disabled, but it’s not who we are. We’re still ourselves. We have to do things a little bit differently. You just said it.

I think it’s, you know, that whole differently abled. Exactly. Disabled, differently abled. And I do know, and speaking to so many others and experiencing ourselves and our own lives, it’s just not something that when someone is injured and can feel so all alone, even if surrounded by a lot of love, that loneliness often has people who are injured, spinal cord injured, not reaching back out or not accepting various invitations, I think, because of not wanting to be or thought of as being disabled. Exactly.

You know, I was pretty overweight, you know, just from being on meds and swelling and just not having a great diet, not being able to move, you know, especially with the medications, I gained a lot of weight. So it was hard for me initially to, you know, transfer and I was afraid of falling. Mariah, she’s pretty tiny. So it’s like, if I fall, how are we going to get me back up? Like, yeah, we have a Hoyer lift at home, but if we’re out and about, like, what are we gonna do?

Those thoughts kind of plague you in the back of your mind. So you’re like, “Okay, maybe I just won’t go somewhere. If we get invited, like, is that place accessible? Are the doorways wide enough for this massive hospital chair that they fitted me with? ” Kind of puts you in like a little cocoon.

Like, you don’t want to necessarily go out. You don’t want to be a burden. And that’s something I struggled with for a long time. And sometimes I still do honestly struggle with thoughts of it was, you know, being a burden on other people just because things might take a little bit longer. We have to do things differently.

You know, we can’t go to certain parts of an area that we’re at. And it took a really long time to try and get out of that mindset. And even though, you know, I dip into it every once in a while, like, I feel like once you get past that feeling of being a burden, you really can achieve a lot more. And also the people around you, it not only benefits you, but it benefits them as well. That’s exactly right.

I think there is a true relational reciprocity that for someone like you who breaks through that barrier of I don’t want to be a burden, you actually free up all the other people who thought that they might be burdened because they had to move their chairs at their table or get up to make sure there’s enough room for you to pass, or they had to, you know, reshuffle something else because here comes the guy in the wheelchair. It’s better for them, too, when you break through that. And you do so with grace and resilience and a smile or whatever it takes. Almost like you’re modeling for the rest of the world, truly, Austin. Yeah, and you know I noticed that quite a bit when my attitude changed, even people, the strangers, their attitude changed too.

Like anyone who’s in a wheelchair or with a disability, you know, people stare at you. When you’re in those first couple of years of having a disability, you’re like, oh, people are staring at me. Like, I feel like I have to hurry up and get through this door or a moving table in this quiet restaurant to make things more accessible. Like, it can be nerve wracking, but it’s crazy what eye contact and a smile will do or say, “Hey, excuse me real quick, what that’ll do. ” And it’s just like overnight, people want to help, I’ve noticed.

Part of my field is relational conflict theory. It’s premised on a belief in the capacity of human beings and that there’s a moral impulse. And this is not from the religion or from any religion. It’s a human, the way we are wired. You know, we’re not animals.

There’s a moral impulse to be connected to another human being. Absolutely. You touched on that. It’s incredible. Like, when your mindset changes, it’s the energy that you give off.

I’m a big believer in energy, and you I am too. You get what you put out. Yeah And so you’re putting out that positive energy or like not shrinking down into yourself, you know, opening up your chest, having some of that confidence. It perks people up. It does.

And as you open up your chest just then, I see on your t-shirt, athlete. Athlete High Fives Foundation represent. I love it. I love it. What’s it do for you when you wear your t-shirt says athlete on it?

It makes me feel part of, you know, the community. Like, I’m proud to be wearing this, proud to be part of that high five, Sohana and this community of incredible people. We have a relatively large community of spinal cord injuries, TBIs, you know, life-changing injuries in this area just because of the things that come with living in, you know, around Lake Tahoe. Right, and all the incredible extreme sports, but just sports sports. Yeah, extreme sports.

You know, we have mountains on one side, and we have desert on the other. So you got skiing, snowboarding, tons of lakes around here. And then you have Sand Mountain, which is an hour and a half to the east where you got ATVs, motorcycles, all these different things. And there’s so many spinal cord injuries in this area. There are.

It’s one of the aspects of blink of an eye. We respond to the call within hours around the country. You are a living example that spinal cord injury is happening to just the fittest and the most active and speaking of mindsets, you know, those who are already out in the world intellectually, but also playing sports, you know, recreating. And so we actually have an incredible brain trust, not to mention, you know, will of attitude trust of people who are injured, that it could be an interesting collection of just spinal cord injured people as a group might be not only a small segment of because the injury, you know, it’s not the heart attack that appears in every hospital across America, you know, every day. It’s an injury that doesn’t happen, thank goodness that often.

And yet, for those to whom this injury does happen, it’s a pretty interesting segment of society in terms of capacity, mental, mindful, mindset, positive capacity. Absolutely. And, you know, it can happen to anybody. I’ve met people with spinal cord injuries from falling off roofs. One of the guys that I work out with at high fives, he got in an altercation.

He got stabbed in the spinal cord. I’ve met people whose parachutes didn’t open, skydiving, or it did open and they hit the ground too fast. Mountain bikes, car crashes, like it can happen to anybody. The age, health, it doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t discriminate.

And I think, you know, just having that mindset coming out of it, it doesn’t matter who you are. It’s all about mindset. ‘Cause I’ve interacted with people who, you know, they have family, they have support, but they think their life is over. And they think they, you know, they’re 10 years in and they, you know, they have lower lumbar injury or, you know, their T10, T12. And they have all this upper body that they can do things with.

Yet they don’t. I know people who are, you know, C6 quads out here riding mountain bikes. It’s literally all a mindset and just reaching out. And I’ve gotten a couple text messages or referrals for people who are like, “Hey, this person’s been injured for, you know, four or five years. ” I, you know, I asked him, you know, “Are you connected with anybody locally?

” And they’re like, “No, I don’t know about anything. ” So I think it’s really important to, you know, try and get as many resources out there to educate people who might not know that they even exist. That’s right. And try and bring them in as part of the community. That way, you know, they don’t feel so alone.

There’s this one kid in town that he goes to the same physical therapist that I do. And she, like, didn’t go into details or anything, but she kind of just told me, like, you know, he’s really struggling. Like, he’s a lower thoracic injury. He’s pretty fit. He’s young, but his family just does everything for him.

He doesn’t do anything, and he’s afraid to. So one day, I was just like, “Okay, well, his appointments after mine, like I’ll stay and introduce myself to him. ” That way he can see that, you know, you can do stuff. Life’s not over. Like, I’m a higher injury than you and.

I’m proud of you for doing that as an introvert. Yeah. Well, you know, and the thing about this injury, it really brought me out of my shell because it had to. I had to learn to ask for help. I had to learn to ask for things, which I never like to do.

And I still do struggle with because I like to be, you know, as independent as possible. I like to help people, but I don’t necessarily like to be helped. Yes. But, you know, with this injury, you don’t really have a choice. Yeah, no, you don’t have a choice.

So what happened when you reached back to this kid? He, you know, we just got to talk for a couple minutes, nothing crazy. But he was telling me the next appointment that his whole attitude changed. He was willing to try transfers. I just started learning Florida chair transfers because it’s for people who don’t know, T4, complete, you know, all sensation and everything from my nipples down is gone.

So, you know, I have no abdomen, no core support, nothing. So really learning to use my upper body to get off the floor was a huge thing. So when she told him that I was working on that and how I was progressing, he was like, “Oh, well, I want to try that. ” So it’s just like even the smallest, smallest things can really help motivate somebody or change their mindset, give them a new outlook. I’m not actively going out, seeking people to help, you know, but if it’s presented in front of me, I absolutely would love to.

You know, I enjoy helping people. And I know where they’ve been. I’ve been in that same mindset. And I know how dark it can be. Yeah.

It was the hardest time of my life. I’ve been through a lot of trauma, but there’s nothing that will prepare you for that. When you can have somebody that you can relate to, that’s not a doctor or physical therapist, because I’ve had therapists, they’re like, “Okay, yeah, we’re going to do a Florida chair transfer like this and you’re just going to pop up. ” I’m like, “All right, well, I saw you activate your abdomen, your quads and your calves when you did that. ” So, no, it’s not going to work like that.

Like, I like to think of myself as a realist. Like, yeah, I can be hopeful and stuff, but at the end of the day, I’m very, very focused on, okay, what’s the actual outcome of this going to be? What do I actually have to do to work towards this? Like I said, once I was able to talk with him and my therapist shared her experience of, you know, how my progress was, it really perked him up—perked him up.

I think this idea of someone to relate to, one of the next projects for Blink of an Eye nonprofit, is we’re putting together a digital resource library for, you know, what to expect in those first 36 hours and then the first week, second week, month, but also into rehab and thereafter listing all kinds of resources and having, you know, tiny little YouTube videos and so forth. But with people also who are stepping up, who want to be mentors, someone you can relate to, and doesn’t even have to be an official capacity mentor. Just hear somebody you can call and make an appointment with to talk about them or their life and you and your life, if you so feel like it. That’s something that we feel very strongly about doing a blink of an eye because of what we’ve been learning about this journey. It’s so important.

And just from personal experiences, even with resources out there like that, it’s still intimidating. It’s very intimidating to reach out to other people, especially in those first couple of weeks, first 36 hours, month, whatever it may be. It’s extremely intimidating to reach out to people, especially people you don’t know. But having those resources available, it’s such a pivotal role in your recovery and your injury and mindset. And so the fact that you guys are doing that, that’s incredible.

Well, we’re inspired by people like you and Mariah’s in the world, and the people who didn’t have the opportunity to be Mariah, because it’s actually very joyful to witness the incredible life that continues after spinal cord injury. One of my learnings has been the kind of energy that it takes for someone who is spinal cord injured. And in your case, Archer’s case, many other injuries, that’s a complete, you know that’s a scientific term for those who don’t understand different labels, if you will, but labels that can actually be helpful in the spinal cord injury world when you’re relating to somebody. Are they incomplete or are they complete? And realizing that with a complete injury, just you know that 80% of any kind of trouble is bowel and bladder.

Yeah. And it’s such a natural thing, you know, like it’s as natural as blowing your nose and laughing, bowel and bladder for all of us. And you know, unfortunately, people with spinal cord injuries, it’s always going to be a struggle. It is. I mean, without getting into too much detail, like I struggled with it really up until like January of this year.

When I was in rehab, they’re teaching you like digital stimulation for your bowels. And it’s like, oh, you know, just do this for 60 seconds until you poop or whatever. But it’s not that easy. Like the way it really depends on what you eat. Your gut health is such an important, such, I can’t even stress it enough, such an important part of this.

You know, watching what you eat, portion control. 2021, I did a blood test to see food sensitivities. That alone made such a huge difference. Yet I still was struggling. Like, I’ve always had a sensitive tummy.

So, you know, the accidents and blowouts, it was a huge thing. But once you get your bowels and bladder regulated and on a schedule, like, you just get so much freedom back in your life. And January of this year, I completely changed my bow program to just using a suppository, laying down. Yeah, I’d say it cut out 95% of any accidents, which really gave me more independence to go out and do things that I wanted. Amazing.

That’s going to be so valuable to so many spinal cord injured listeners to know that while digital STEM is really the most cutting edge way to learn about bowel and bladder with portion control and finding out what your body really likes to digest and doesn’t like to digest that combination you could then potentially go to the suppository route and not have the accidents and the blowouts and the backups. Exactly. And it just gives you so much freedom, especially taking prebiotics, probiotics. Ryan and I, we love food. We’re foodies.

We love trying new places, new things. So, you know, I’m lactose intolerant, so keeping, you know, lactate in my bag. I don’t want to give up trying something with heavy cream in it, you know, just because I’m worried about what’s going to happen. So keeping, keeping things with you, you know, keeping little backups. I eat these papaya enzymes.

It’s like an after meal supplement that helps calm your stomach. And it’s just little things like that that you just have to learn along the way. You know, going through it, unfortunately, having to deal with the accidents and stuff. You just pick up little things here and there that ultimately give you a better quality of life. Beautiful.

One of our wraparound support teams for our family navigators at Blink of an Eye is a nutrition specialist, and also we have an integrative health coach. And we thought about starting to list out some of the things that we know really help gut health. And I think I’m just going to have to circle back to that. Yeah, absolutely. I mean And say, yeah, Austin, you know, what do we need to put into this so that other spinal cord injured families and injured people themselves can actually benefit from any way I can help.

I mean, I’m always down more than happy to help. And, you know, also staying hydrated is a huge thing, you know, because your bowels aren’t going to work the way they should if you’re not hydrated, if you don’t have water. And I understand, you know, drinking a lot of water can be hard, especially, you know, with bladder accidents. And some people’s body will get a little bit of AD to tell them they have to pee. Others people don’t.

Like myself, sometimes I’ll get this tightness in my chest. I’m like, okay, I have to urinate. Other times it doesn’t happen and my pants are soaked or whatever. Like, we went to go to the movies the other night and I had a little bit of a UTI because I wasn’t drinking enough water. And we get to the movies, I transfer into the seat and then I pee and then I had to sit there through the whole movie because I’m like, I’m tired of leaving places just because something happened.

Like, okay, it’s not my bowels. It’s fine. Like, nobody can tell other than me. Of course, I’m wearing gray sweatpants so people can see, but Mariah gave me her hoodie, I put it over my lap, whatever. We just went on with our day.

You know, it can be embarrassing, but screw it, you know? Yeah, exactly. But the reality of how your body is still wanting to give you some type of signal, even though it’s above the nipple line, of what is happening below the body and still having to forego what is a natural thing for not being able to get to the natural place that able-bodied people can do. Exactly. Well, and it’s crazy how our bodies after spinal cord injury change.

So at the beginning of my injury, when I had to pee, I would start to sweat or my cheeks would get really red. And then six months later, none of that happened or one of those things would go away. My cheeks would get red, but I wouldn’t be sweating. And then my chest started getting tight. Always keeps changing.

And then so I used to have really bad tone and spasticity in my hips and legs to where it got to the point where my knees would pinch together, my hip flexors would tighten, and I’d be bent over. And it was like that all day, all the time. And oral baclofen wasn’t working. We tried Botox shots multiple times to help relieve everything. That actually made it worse.

And then it got to the point where my legs would not, you couldn’t pull them straight. Like going to physical therapy for a year, we basically had to stop all physical therapy. And I’d go once or twice a week, basically just for them to stretch me out and try and relieve some of those spasms. And it got to the point where my knees would be stuck in a 90-degree angle. I made my transfers impossible.

It made pretty much everything I did unsafe and just harder to do. And it was really discouraging. You know, when my bladder would get full, it would make that stuff tenfold. Yeah. So in November last year, I got a baclofen pump, which was completely life-changing for me.

So it looks like a little hockey puck basically that’s implanted in my lower right abdomen. And there’s a catheter that they anchored into my spinal cord. So it’s a very small dosage, direct concentration of baclofen. That’s intrathecal baclofen. Once we got my dosage right, that completely changed my life.

You know, my legs were loose. I was able to transfer freely. I started learning to get dressed in my chair instead of having to roll around on the bed and fighting my legs. But now that my legs are loose, it’s weird. So some days I’ll get the tightness in my chest.

Other days, I’ll get a really fast random spasm. And I’m like, okay, I must have to urinate. And so it’s just weird how our bodies are always changing. As a mom of a son who’s spinal cord injured, for me, like my first instinct is it’s hopeful, like stuff’s still happening in the body. You know It actually gets me kind of excited in that way and feeling very hopeful.

And on the other hand, I know what a challenge it can be because the level of hyper-awareness that’s necessary to understand the ever-changing spot really cause a lot of energy. It does. And you know just with our bodies are constantly changing. And you know when I was in the hospital, they said, you know you’re probably going to have swelling around your spinal cord for up to two years and things could still change after that. And they did, you know even being a T4 complete.

So my spinal cord wasn’t severed. The way that my doctor explained it to me was, what happens if you take a banana and you karate chop it? It doesn’t cut in half, but it’s smushed. Everything’s still kind of connected, but you’ve displaced everything in that area. And so that’s basically what happened to my spinal cord.

I don’t remember any of my crash that happened, but just from the police report and photos and stuff, they’re saying that I flew off my bike and in midair, I was upside down and I got hit by a car. And I think that’s what actually gave me the spinal cord injury was the impact of the oncoming car against my back. Yeah, the impact with a moving car. Exactly. So, you know, I’m doing 30, 40 miles an hour.

They’re doing 30, 40 miles an hour. My back took an impact of 60 to 80 miles an hour. And so honestly, I think if that car wasn’t there, I most likely wouldn’t have this injury. But who else knows what would have happened? I wrote a book a number of years ago, and there’s a whole chapter of the woulda, the coulda, and the shouldas can kill you.

I think about it all the time. You know I drive by that accident spot multiple times a week. It doesn’t bother me. It did the first time, but I think because I don’t remember anything happening, not a big deal to me. But just looking around at the area, I’m like, okay, if that car wasn’t there, I could have flown and broke my neck on that tree or hit that curb or who knows what would have happened.

So I’m like, could I have been in a better shape than I am now? Yes. Could something worse happened? Absolutely. Could I have not crashed?

And then I got hit by a semi going to work on my motorcycle. Who knows? Who knows all the above. What I know is that you’re living a really incredible life with just one of those many, many scenarios that can go through our minds, your minds, not just randomly, but perhaps every time you visit the site or just when you feel like it. And you know an aspect of trauma healing is to go back.

It is. Late 2021, I started seeing a mental health therapist and going through the stages of grief. We talked about things with my injury and how I was handling them, but then we also dove into my childhood and things that happened and how a lot of those things were affecting my mindset of how after my injury. If you’re going through this and you’re struggling with it, I highly, highly suggest speaking with a mental health professional. It literally could be life-changing.

It could save your life, really. It could. Just those kinds of connections and insights that you can get where you free yourself of blaming anyone and connect the dots and realize where your resiliency, where you can call upon the resiliency, even of your parents or your ancestors, and they never had to be perfect. And you can also forgive those who weren’t complete for you. Nobody can satisfy every one of our needs.

And then we decide who we want to be. And there’s a huge freedom in that. And it’s a quality of integration for trauma healing. It is. And facing those hard thoughts and those hard feelings and just the scary stuff, facing them head on, it’s so important.

It’s another pivotal part of healing because your body can heal. Your bodies are resilient, but your mind can plague you. And if you can really work on your brain, it’s incredible what how just how your life will change, how your views on everything, how your views on yourself, your injury, the people around you, you know, recognizing that with this injury, you’re probably going to lose some people in your life. But finding acceptance and finding ways to think about how your role in everyone else’s lives that are sticking around, you don’t if people want to leave your life because your injury, fine. People come and go.

Celebrate that people that come in, you celebrate the people that go out. Beautiful. Not everyone’s paths are going to stay the same your whole life. Like, I’m sure we’ve all had friends that, you know, we had for years and years and years. And then say you get married and you don’t talk anymore or whatever.
People’s lives change. And that’s okay. Everyone, we’re all individuals, but the people that really matter will show up for you day after day. They will. And it’s a beautiful thing to allow people to come in and to come out and to also really particularly celebrate the ones who are your anchors.

So, Austin, I’m very interested in this, like the epiphanies that you’ve had. You’ve spoken about aha and this spiritual component of how you weren’t you were told you wouldn’t live, you weren’t meant to live, but you are, and this ability to allow people to come and go in and out of your life. And you have a company called Death Connection. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

I want to ask you about that because I also noticed something else that you said earlier I would revisit. But yeah, tell us about death connection. Yeah, it’s, I don’t know, for people that can’t see me covered in tattoos. I’ve always lived kind of an edgy lifestyle. I’m in a motorcycle club.

Got a lot of great brothers around me that supported me so much throughout this. And, you know, through my injury, they raised a ton of money for me. The community motorcycle community here raised a ton of money for me, you know, just for adaptive equipment. And since we weren’t working and things like that, I’m not all rainbows and sunshine. You know, I’m more of an edgy person.

So I started this company called Death Connection. I don’t know, it was just kind of a random thought one day. We were driving up to Oregon and I was just sitting in the passenger seat messing around with this little graphic software. So I made a sticker and then I decided, you know, get it printed. And then I went to these motorcycle events and I just started selling them, just trying to raise money.

And then I was like, “Okay, well, I’m going to try a t-shirt. ” And so, you know, there was all this, you know, sex trafficking and pedophilia stuff going around in the news. So I made this t-shirt and sticker that kind of like pinpointed that. I mean, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but it says, “Kill pedophiles, stay violent. ” And it blew up.

I’ve released probably 15 shirts since then, and that’s still the one that sells the most. I saw it on your website, and you actually have like a six-year-old little boy wearing it. Yeah, I had a ton of people wanting toddler in kid sizes. Like, they wanted to match their kids. I’m like, “Okay, well, if that’s what people want, then I’ll give it to them.

” I want to stand up for the people who don’t really have a voice. And I’m not afraid to make a statement about it either. ‘Cause I’ve had people come up to me or, you know, my customers, they’re like, “Oh, why would you wear that? ” And they’re like, “Well, do you support pedophilia? ” And they’re like, “Well,” and they’re like, “Okay, well then what’s your issue with it?

” The brand isn’t for everybody and that’s okay. It’s targeted towards a very specific group of people who they like to live fast. I think on my website, it says death connection clothing for those who don’t conform to the societal norm, live fast and retail. You know, being a biker myself, like, that’s what I like to do. I live fast.

It’s not a huge thing, but it gives me something to do. You know, I’ve always wanted to start a clothing company. Will it change someday? I’m sure it will because I need to follow the trends so it doesn’t die off, but I’m also not going to. I think there’s something about this.

So Archer started a clothing company too, my son, and he riffed as a joke on vineyard vines. And so he came up with the name Slime Yard Slimes, and everybody actually loved it. And it even had a preppy quality to it, but it was with a snail because of him being an artist. And one of the first things he ever did with the mobile arm support was just a bunch of swirly, you know, scribbles. And in that, you know, his first time he did it, he was very discouraged and thought he would never be an artist again.

But as you well know, once an artist in your mindset, always an artist. And so he then did it again a few months later and he saw in that a snail. And so that kind of became his thing and then slime yard for the snail, the slime yard slimes. And he did that. And then after a few years, maybe two or three, he felt like he wanted to get edgy too.

And so he dropped the entire sort of like preppy thing and just went to only Slime Yard, wanted to be a little edgy. I think more than anything, wanted to really be himself, like find something that was his. And the paths that you both have been on have some similarity in that regard. I might share that listening to you and wanting to take a stand and against something that is so heinous and dark and miserable as pedophilia. And you have it on your shirts and people like them.

Earlier, you had said, even with the High Fives Foundation, how you were attracted to them and they’ve been so good to you and you to them. And they had a motto you know to adapt and overcome. And like you have in your website you know to you know live fast and live strong or something that you had said. And then they sort of switched it up to adapt and destroy. And you went to, you know, like no pedophilia, stay violent.

I think that’s probably what some people might be having some difficulty with. What do you think? It’s just not talked about enough. So it’s things like that that catch people’s attention because it’s like kind of like that shock factor. There’s this other company on Instagram that like when I started Death Connection, we kind of like chit chat a little bit, but his is public hangs for pedophiles or something like that because it’s such an uncomfortable topic and people don’t want to talk about it and it’s not talked about enough.

So I feel like you put something out like kill pedophiles stay violent or something like that. It grabs people’s attention. Yeah, it may make people uncomfortable, but guess what? They also sought. Yeah, interesting.

So it’s more of like a marketing ploy to grab 100% intention grabber. You know I don’t support abuse towards women, children, anything, like anything of that sort. Animals, whatever it may be. I may look a little rugged and scary on the outside, but I’m a lover and an empath on the inside. Actually, it’s funny.

One of the first interactions I had with Roy Tuscany, he came up to me and I was nervous to meet him in person because we’d never met face-to-face yet. So I was quiet. I had sunglasses on, you know, whatever. And he comes up, introduce himself to me. I introduce myself back and we just chitchat a little bit.

And then earlier this year, he was like, “Man, I remember the first time I met you, I was so scared. You had your head tattooed and you’re just mean mugging me. ” I was like, “Dude, I was so nervous to meet you. ” You know, it’s like like any of the animal kingdom, right? You even think about like the desert lizard, you know, the dragon lizard, right?

They go, “Ah, they just look so scary. ” But underside, you know, the underside is such a soft, you know, belly, fragile, and tender. Yeah, I mean, that’s just how I was raised. I was raised to be compassionate, loving, respectful, do unto others as you want done to you. You know, that’s still who I am.

I may not be in the religion anymore, but I still have the same values and morals to a sense, you know? With high fives, they’re adapt and destroy. When I first saw that, I loved it because it’s an offshoot of skate and destroy, which was, I believe it was the Thrasher skateboarding logo. So, but, you know, having to adapt to everything, like, it’s edgy, it’s cool. Like, we’re going to destroy these hurdles that we have to go over.

Yeah, I don’t know. I suspect for you, you’ll even come up with another word that will be even cooler and edgier to grab people’s attention, rather than violent and destroy. But until then. . .

I’ve got this huge list of sayings and things in my phone. I’m just like, just trying to collaborate and, you know, figure out the whole kill, violent, destroy whatever. It has worked against me in some senses because I got shadow banned on all social media because they say it’s promoting violence and whatnot. I’m like, I can see that. That’s fair.

But also the message behind it. Like, I’m not saying go out and hurt people, but it’s more of a message to stand up for those who can’t or have a hard time standing up for themselves. Maybe you have something that says that using your real brand. Lift fast, stand up, you know, no pedophilia. Yeah, I’m working on some other stuff to try and get away from that because it’s ultimately affected who sees it because now it’s mostly word of mouth.

That’s interesting. Oh, that’s so interesting, though, because you wanted shock factor to be able to raise an issue that’s so hard to talk about. And now you’re getting kind of shut down and you’re never going to be able to talk about some of the people who really need to talk about it. I’m trying to come up with new stuff to try and you know still get the message out there, but almost rebrand in a certain way, but still be edgy while you know still appealing to the demographic that I have. Yeah, maybe you take the demographic that you have and you get your, you know, who you really are with that, whatever it is, living fast.

And then you still raise your issues, you know, whether it’s a, I mean, I could just listen, right? Abuse or human trafficking or pedophilia or climate, you know, you know, ruining our environment or whatever it is. And you raise a number of issues because you’re, you’d be the guy to do it because I can attest to your living strong and living fast and being an empath and being a lover. I’m trying every day. You know, it’s, I just, I take everything day by day and every day in the next, it’s a new journey.

And we just gotta keep pushing on, really. Just keep learning. So this will be our last question, but what’s the next chapter for Austin Price? It’s a good question. You know, I’m trying to work on my graphic design in school and whatnot.

But ultimately, I just want to inspire people. I want to be able to get a job that I can work where Mariah doesn’t have to work so hard and so much. ‘Cause I’ll be honest, she’s working herself into the ground. And it pains me to see that every day, how tired and everything she is at the end of every single day. And I just want to I want to be able to start a family and just give them a good life.

And, you know, whether we’re probably going to have to when that time comes, you know, do IVF or whatever it may be. And my dream is just to have a family. And I just want to be able to raise my kids to grow up with the same, you know, morals and love that I was given and raised with. I grew up with some generational traumas, but I want to break those generational things and just ultimately give my family the best life that I can. And I want to, you know, inspire people around me.

Just be happy, healthy. Like, I’ve been working two to three times a week at the gym with high fives. I’ve lost close to 85 pounds in the last year, which ultimately from a spinal cord injury state has also been life-changing, makes everything easier. And it’s really helped my shoulders, which as anyone knows in a wheelchair, those are your legs. So you got to take care of them.

So ultimately, I just, my future, I just want to be happy, healthy, and just love. I wish you well. And you will have a family, I’m sure. Thank you for being you and living strong and living fast. Thank you so much.

It was really, really nice talking with you. Thank you. Take care, Austin. And this concludes our captivating interview with Austin Price, a truly inspiring individual who has shown us the power of determination, creativity, resilience, and vulnerability. Throughout our conversation, Austin reminds us that setbacks and challenges can be overcome with the right mindset, surrounding yourself with the right people.

His unwavering passion for extreme sports, coupled with his entrepreneurial drive, serve as a testament to the indomitable spirit that resides in all of us. As we wrap up this episode, we encourage you to reflect on the valuable lessons we’ve learned from Austin’s story. We’ve witnessed how pursuing our passions, even in a very different form, can lead to personal growth and fulfillment, despite daily adversity. Austin’s commitment to his education, his clothing brand, and his love for extreme sports demonstrates the power of following one’s dreams and embracing the journey, no matter what human obstacles we encounter along the way. Austin’s story reminds us that each of us has the capacity to overcome challenges, pursue our passions, no matter what comes our way.

Thank you, Austin. And thank you for listening. Don’t forget to subscribe to Blink of an Eye podcast for future episodes featuring remarkable individuals living with spinal cord injury. Until next time, keep pushing boundaries, pursuing your dreams, and embracing the connection between passion and resilience. From pain to progress.

Sending love. Life can change in the blink of an eye. Begin again. You’ve been listening to Blink of an Eye. We ask that you share this with anyone who may need inspiration, a lift, or who may relate.

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