”It felt like somebody knocked my wind out.”
Jason Parker was known for kick-flipping and blasting big air on his bike, but a serious BMX accident 21 years ago broke his neck and left him a quadriplegic .
“I was wanting to get up and I couldn’t get wind and I was like, something’s wrong. I couldn’t and then I realized I can’t move,” he explained.
It took Parker a while to acclimate to his new lifestyle. The North Carolina native moved back home from Iowa City to be closer to family during his recovery.
He rode for the first time since his accident, last year. Parker raised money selling ‘FunFaLife’ t-shirts for an excursion with Catalyst Sports that let him try out an adaptive mountain bike.“It took me a minute to get it down a little bit, but with the second run through the trail, man, I was on it. We we did about three or four times. It’s like we didn’t want to get off the bike. We just kept kept wanting to ride and ride,” said Parker.
But owning a bike fit for Jason’s needs comes with a hefty price tag of around $16,000. That’s why Steve Baker and Terry French are raising money to get him one.
“The molded seat and adaptive handles, the adaptive feet pedals and such. They’re pretty special bikes, but they’re expensive,” explained Baker.