The Steamboat Pilot & Today

The doctor told him feeling might return to his legs in the next two weeks. If the feeling hadn't returned by then, it probably wouldn't.

Craig Kennedy can remember himself as a 23-year-old, sitting in his hospital bed, watching his legs and counting down the days until he would know his fate -- one way or the other.

He can remember Day 12, Day 13, Day 14, but most vividly, he remembers Day 15 -- the day he realized he would be spending his life in a wheelchair.

"On that day, I had to make a decision," he said. "I had to decide to deal with it and not feel sorry for myself. I can't imagine how different my life would be if I'd decided to be miserable."

Until that day, Kennedy had been just like a thousand other 23-year-olds who moved to Steamboat Springs to ski and have a good time in the mountains.

It was March 28, 1996. He was skiing home from work at Ragnar's at about 4 in the afternoon.

"My normal path was usually Oops to Concentration, but that day I decided to traverse to Vertigo," he said. It was late in the season and late in the day. The spring slush was just beginning to freeze and harden. "I went to jump over the cat track and my skis just came out from under me." He landed on his back where the work shoes he had in his backpack dug into his spine. He suffered a compression fracture in one vertebra. Another vertebra completely burst.

He remembers being taken down the mountain on a sled. He remembers telling the people in the emergency room that he was in a lot of pain. He was driven to the airport and flown to Denver's Swedish Medical Center.

These days, when Kennedy speaks at assisted-living facilities and rehabilitation centers for people with spinal cord injuries, he always tells the story of that first moment when he woke up after 2 1/2 days in the ICU and 10 hours of surgery.

His family and friends were standing around his bed looking down at him. Kennedy said he could feel the tension and hesitation in the room. It was as if everyone was holding their breath.

His physical therapist, a woman named Gina, was holding his hand. She asked how he was feeling.

"I said, ‘Would you go out with me?' and everyone started laughing," Kennedy said. "My dad said, ‘He's still the same old Craig.'"

Kennedy realized how important his attitude was to his family.

"I tell people who are recovering from injuries that it's not just about them," he said. "It's about your family, especially your parents."

After he was released from the hospital, Kennedy made the decision to return to Steamboat in a wheelchair. Three weeks after his injury, the staff at Murphy's Exchange (a bar that once sat on Lincoln Avenue) arranged a fundraiser to cover Kennedy's medical bills. Sixty local businesses donated prizes. The bartenders donated their tips. People lined up out the door to pay the $10 cover, and the event raised more than $8,000.

"After that, I decided I'm never leaving Steamboat Springs," Kennedy said.

Ten years later, as a 33-year-old, it seems there isn't anything Kennedy can't do. He navigates his chair up flights of stairs and through concert crowds to the stage. He skis the deep powder on his monoski and can take his chair on most hiking trails.

When he first started touring with his new book, "Access Anything: Colorado," a guidebook of outdoor adventure for people with disabilities, he looked out on the rooms of people just coming to terms with their injuries and realized he had forgotten what it was like to learn his new life.

"It's like starting all over again," he said. "You have to learn how to go to the bathroom and how to get around the kitchen.

"These days, I'll try anything, but it wasn't always like that."

Kennedy says his job in life is to act as an inspiration for people with disabilities and to open doors for those people by helping businesses be more accessible.

A year ago, Kennedy started a company called CK Consulting. His biggest accomplishment in a year has been to help Steamboat Ski Corp. make the base area more accessible to people in wheelchairs. In all, Ski Corp. spent $50,000 on the changes, Kennedy said. Thirty thousand dollars went to the installation of a new, wheelchair-accessible gondola car.

In his article, "Travelers with Disabilities: The Untapped Market," Kennedy explained that there are 55 million people with disabilities in the United States who spend $13.5 billion a year on travel. If resort areas would make a special effort to cater to people with disabilities, that number could double, he said.

When most people think about people in wheelchairs, they tend to think about the elderly. But the current atmosphere of adventure sports -- each outing must be bigger, better and more dangerous -- means 11,000 new spinal cord injuries every year, mostly involving people ages 25 to 35.

Those people are looking for opportunities to ski, climb, bike and generally be outdoors despite their injuries.

"Access Anything: Colo--rado" is the first in a series of city and state guidebooks to encourage people to get back out there and to encourage the "able-bodied" world to make it possible.