One Bad Day. Turning Tragedy Into Triumph

On September 9, 2008, in Sacramento, California, my life took a devastating turn. As I made eye contact with a driver and accelerated, believing I had the right of way, my front wheel lodged beneath a car, catapulting me from my motorcycle. "Oh, this isn’t going to be good," I thought as I flew through the air.

I collided with the wires atop a brown power pole and plummeted two stories into a planter box below. The sheer force of the impact knocked me out. I died on impact.

Miraculously, life was blown back into my lifeless body. In my delirium, I tried to get up, thinking I needed to get out of the road to avoid further injury. But I was immobilized, with my arm dangling and my left leg grotesquely bent, my foot behind my head.

A warm hand held me down and told me to stay put. I passed out, only to be awakened by the sound of sirens.

At the hospital, I arrived in critical condition. Surrounded by doctors and medical staff, my condition rapidly deteriorated. As my heart went into cardiac arrest, the doctors turned to the defibrillator without success. The emergency room physician cracked my chest open and placed the defibrillator paddles directly on my heart. Flatline. No response.

On the first day of his internship, a young doctor was instructed to perform open-heart massage CPR as a training opportunity. This hands-on cardiac massage restarted my heart and brought me back to life.

In total, I broke fifteen bones, severed two arteries, punctured both lungs, and was pronounced clinically dead twice. I shattered my femur, four ribs, sternum, upper and lower jaw, collarbone, neck, spine, scapula, and arm. According to the medical staff, it was one of the worst traumas Sacramento Memorial Hospital had ever seen.

To say the least, it was a bad day.

As days passed, weeks, and months, I remained alive. However, my prognosis was grim. The doctors told me I was most likely confined to a wheelchair in a convalescent home, never able to walk or talk again.

I immediately rejected that prognosis. I did not survive everything that happened and endure all the pain just to sit in a convalescent home waiting to die. Fuck that!

So, that day, I made a decision: I would do everything in my power to get better. I didn’t care how much it would hurt, what I had to do, or how long it would take. I was going to get better.

Baby steps. My right arm from the elbow down was the only body part that worked. The question was, what could I do with that?

I decided to jump into a swimming pool. At first, it was a struggle to keep my head above water and avoid drowning.

In the next few sessions, I managed to dog paddle. Over time, this progressed to swimming laps. Swimming is a low-impact exercise that helps improve cardiovascular health and muscle strength without putting undue stress on the body. The buoyancy of the water also provided gentle resistance, helping to rebuild my muscles.

As my legs gained strength, I started riding a recumbent bicycle. The design of the bike provided support to my back and allowed me to pedal without straining my spine. The bicycling exercise strengthened my legs, allowing me to walk again.

Consequently, I figured, if I could swim, bike, and walk, I could do a triathlon.

Two years later, in October 2010, I finished my first triathlon. As of 2024, I have completed over 60 events.

In my downtime from training, I decided to go back to community college. At first, I could only take one class, assisted into the classroom by a wheelchair. Over the years, I used various adaptive technologies, such as voice recognition software for note-taking and computer use, as well as ergonomic equipment to minimize strain on my body. Years later, I graduated with my AA and moved on to higher education.

After a decade of study, I received a Master of Data Analysis from Chapman University. My research focused on the development of adaptive technologies and machine learning algorithms to assist individuals with disabilities, aiming to improve their quality of life and independence.

My journey from that fateful day to now has been nothing short of miraculous. Every step, every stroke, every pedal was a testament to the human spirit's unyielding drive to overcome the impossible.

Below is Greg’s advice on how to approach higher education, the importance of volunteering and training, and the advantages of being a digital nomad in today’s economy.

Education: Many people think of a degree as something that has to be done in four years; otherwise, you won’t be successful in college. But you have to look at the big picture, even if you go part-time and take breaks and it takes you 10 or 15 years like it did for me. At the end of the process, you will have accomplished something and be better off for it. Finishing at 30 is better than never starting.

Volunteering: Volunteering is an extremely underrated and underutilized tool. Most people have trouble getting that first job or internship with the company they want, but almost every company will put you to work if you show up and volunteer. This got me in the door with many places I had no chance at otherwise, from an integrated nanotechnology lab to being a zookeeper in charge of dozens of tigers. Just show up, work hard at whatever task you’re given, and meet people, and you will work your way up to a paid position.

Competitions/Training: I was both lucky and unlucky on this one. I had to rebuild my body, so training wasn’t optional for me, and even now if I take more than a week or two off, I start to fall apart rapidly. So, I accepted early on that I had to work out in some capacity every day. What I didn’t realize was that no matter where you start, if you get a little bit better every day, eventually you will be good at it, and at some point, you will be as good as anyone else out there and able to compete at a high level. So, it doesn’t matter where you start, just start and be consistent and let time work for you instead of against you.

Digital Nomad/Career: I started working remotely way before it was popular due to my job as a system admin. Servers were rarely located where I was, so I had to log in to them via the command line. Luckily, things have changed, and now most jobs can be done remotely. And the beautiful thing about that is, you can do it from anywhere in the world. What digital nomads do is work their job for 8 hours a day from some exotic place like Bali or Buenos Aires, and then as soon as they log out for the day, they are on vacation. And because you are free to stay for weeks or months at a time, you don’t have to try and jam everything into a few days. It’s an amazing lifestyle, and I highly recommend it. The hours can get a bit weird, and it can be hard to stay focused, but I think most people can figure it out and live a lifestyle they never thought possible.