The Mike King Story

Description

Mike King has completed a remarkable journey. One hundred twenty days after he pushed out of Fairbanks, Alaska-in his wheelchair-he arrived in Washington, D.C. An incredible 5600 miles by hand! Injured seven years earlier in a motorcycle accident in Calgary, Alberta, King is a paraplegic with a will that defies the reasonable. But his road through therapy, his struggle to accept his limitation, and his 5600-mile trip through summer’s heat and humidity required persistent fortitude. He tells about it openly and poignantly in this personal story.

About the Accident- “Between four and five in the afternoon I was just outside the city of Banff on the 20-mile stretch up to Lake Louise where we were all going to meet later that evening. “As I rounded a bend I failed to see a parked car that was preparing to pull onto the road. I ran into the back end of it, broke my back, both my legs, and suffered a lot of internal injuries as well. And the accident left me with a severed spinal cord so that I am paralyzed from the waist down.”

About his Rehabilitation- “Once I was able to get up and out of bed myself I found that if I asked the staff for something they’d say, ‘You know where it is. Get it yourself!’ That threw me for a real loop because I figured people were supposed to pity me and get me whatever I needed.”

About his Trip- “The morning we started out from the hotel and restaurant in Teslin, a little place in the Yukon Territory, a dump truck driver pulled up beside me, honked his horn, and looked at me like I was nuts. I headed on down to the road, but I kept meeting him as he made his runs back and forth. Finally about noon he came by, stopped, and asked what I was doing. When I told him, he invited us into town that night. We had to drive back about 40 miles, but there was no place on down the road anyway!”