Wade Simmons Interview
Wade Simmons before his accident. On life after, he says: "I'm not down and out yet. I'm still a rider. I'm coming back."
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In the months since freeride star Wade Simmons was seriously injured in September 2002, there has been speculation as to the return of the man that many argue is one of the most influential riders of the movement.
In the current issue of Bike, we are running an abridged version of the following interview. Here is the complete conversation we had with Wade Simmons this March, as he talked in depth about the injury and the road back to full strength.—Ron Ige
Bike: So, tell us how the injury happened.
Wade Simmons: Up on Grouse there’s this chasm; it was formed by this erosion (there was a rainstorm years and years ago). It was off the third switchback of the Grouse ride, up, off the fireroad, maybe 20 meters. I think [videographer] Digger [Todd Fiander] or [photographer] Sterling [Lorence] was looking at it, trying to jump it, and there was one point of it—maybe about 45 foot span—where there’s a lot of work involved. Digger spent countless days fixing up the take off and landing. It looked pretty good.
Thomas, Watson and I were up there that morning when we decided to do it and everything was a go. I’ve jumped that much distance before, but the only thing with this was that it was deep, maybe a 25-foot chasm. So once you take off, you’re basically jumping a river gorge sorta thing. It’s no big deal, the distance [anyway].
What happened to me is that I got bucked a bit. I thought the take off was a bit lippy, but I thought I could maybe compensate. In the air, I get bucked and [in the movie] you can see my front-end start to drop; I came in nose heavy. On the landing, I went to the right a bit. It was a bit of hip so when you land, so you have to kinda fade to the right a bit and coming in nose heavy, I couldn’t get control of my front wheel and I just went across the landing diagonally. If I was in Kamloops doing the same sort of thing I would have just crashed and slid and walked away, but unfortunately, I smoked a tree. So that’s what broke my leg.
Bike: So how bad was the break?
WS: It was a super clean break; the lower quadrant of my femur, so toward the knee. There was no splintering or anything. It was like cutting a top-tube in half and having those two pieces. It wasn’t totally diagonally; it was on a bit of angle, but there was no twisting, no splintering. It was a very clean break, but a pretty big break.
I don’t know where the nerve damage happened. I do have nerve damage. It’s called neuro praxia and I can’t fire the muscles on the outside of my tibia, which raises your foot. I have a drop foot. It happens sometimes with hip injuries and knee injuries and stuff when you can’t dorsy flex your foot, which is lifting it up. So when I walk, I can’t lift my foot up. It kinda sucks. I kinda gotta flop my foot and whatnot.
I’ve been to two neurologists, had EMG tests and they are confident that it will come back 100 percent. It’s just that nerves regenerate at a millimeter a day. It’s really slow.
You really can’t speed up the rate of nerve regeneration, but what you can do, is try to fire the muscles, so you’re consciously trying to send signals down those nerve paths. They say if you consciously try to increase activity that does speed it up a little bit. But who knows, right?
I’m doing acupuncture, which is really good for the nerves. Then, I’m also doing as much physical therapy as I can. You know, just getting back, riding, trying to get strong. I haven’t done anything on this leg since the injury, six and a half months ago.
Bike:How long did it take since your injury to get back on a bike?
WS: September 11 was my surgery. [The accident] happened at 2 p.m. and then I was in surgery at 1 a.m. the next morning. Almost 12 hours after I was in surgery.
Right out of the hospital I was laying on the couch for a solid two, three weeks. And then I got onto a cane as soon as I could lightly weight my foot. I started riding my bike in two months; in two months, I was turning pedals.
Bike: How did that feel?
WS: It was freedom. It was funny because when I was first lying on the couch my girlfriend would come home from school and I’d be like, “Where are we going? Take me driving.” Because I couldn’t drive. It was like, “Take me out for a day.” Wade’s day out. So we’d go and I’d plunk myself onto a park bench and I’d watch the clouds go by kinda thing. I was at the mercy of other people.
I remember at the hospital, the first time I went around the block in a wheelchair. I was like, “Lisa, we’re getting a wheelchair.” I was in my robes. I was in the hospital for nine days after and I think probably on the seventh or eighth day I got to do a lap around the hospital with my girlfriend pushing. It was painful—any bumping and I was like, “Aaahh, go slower.”
The first day on the bike was unbelievable. I didn’t really have a Rocky Mountain at the time that I could ride, only a RM7. What we’d do is go downtown and rent beach cruisers. And just go for a beach cruiser ride around the sea wall. So the people at the rental place got to know me because every couple days we’d be down there renting bikes.
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