Paralyzed Whitehorse man inspired by Paralympics

A young Whitehorse man who lost the use of his legs in a snowmobile jumping accident last fall is taking in the Paralympic Games this week in Vancouver, while he prepares to be released from a rehabilitation centre there.

Darryl Tait, 20, said it feels like fate intervened when the Paralympics began just as he is getting ready to be discharged from Vancouver's GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre, where he has been a patient in the spinal cord injury unit for the past five months.

"For us here at GF Strong, as the Paralympics came on, we were all super-pumped," he told CBC News on Wednesday.

"Most of us here never really paid attention to the Paralympics until we had our accidents, and then it took our full attention."

A former competitive snowmobiler, Tait was jumping his snow machine at a U.S. competition in October when he attempted to do a backflip but his snow machine malfunctioned and crashed to the ground. Tait suffered a severed spinal cord and other internal injuries.

Interested in sledge hockey

Tait said he has seen some Paralympic competitions in person — including a couple of sledge hockey games — as patients at GF Strong have been given tickets to various events. He has also watched some competitions on television, he said.

"I see these guys giving it so, so hard, even knowing that in their past they've gone through an accident, and they've gone through the mental struggle and the physical struggle and trying to learn how to adapt to their new life," he said.

Tait said he has particularly taken an interest in sledge hockey, adding that he hopes to try out one of the sledges before he travels home to Whitehorse at the end of this month.

"I wasn't much of a hockey fan before, but [after watching] the sledge hockey, I'm trying to get in touch with [recreational] therapy at the moment and actually get out and go and hop in one and give it a go before I head home," he said.