There is ‘more than one path in life’

By Sheila Reynolds - Surrey North Delta Leader - April 27, 2008

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Steve Grout speaks to Grade 6 and 7 students in Surrey on Friday as part of a Rick Hansen Foundation initiative.

EVAN SEAL / THE LEADER

He was a student at the University of B.C. when he decided he wanted to be an RCMP officer.

An eager Steve Grout approached the national police force, who told him he needed to complete his undergraduate degree.

So he did, ensuring he exercised his body as well as his mind to be ready for the rigorous training he would inevitably face to become a cop. While at the gym one day, he heard a whoosh, whoosh, whoosh sound. Around the corner he saw a man with bulging biceps in a wheelchair on a conveyor belt-type apparatus. Grout stared at the man, who looked straight ahead as his arms pumped the wheels on either side of his thighs. He later learned his name was Rick Hansen – a fellow who was about to embark on a worldwide tour to raise awareness and money spinal cord research. While impressed, Grout didn’t think much more about the stranger.

When he finally finished his bachelor degree in P.E., Grout applied to the RCMP and headed to the Regina depot for six months of intensive training. He learned to drive a car fast but safely, how to use guns and all the ins and outs of the law. Grout loved the physical and mental challenge police training provided – and valued the camaraderie in his troupe of 32.

It was two weeks before graduation and the recruits were preparing to show their stuff for visiting relatives. Grout’s demonstration would be on the gymnastic rings.

Just back from a run, he headed to the gym and jumped up and grabbed the rings. He pulled himself up, first to his chin then to an iron cross position. It was a routine he’d done many times before, usually ending with a full body rotation before landing on his feet on the mat.

This time, as he prepared for the aerial dismount, his left elbow gave out. Then his right. Instead of the full rotation, he went head first to the mat below.

“I felt crack, crack, crack, crack in my neck. I felt a zip down my neck and back and down my legs and into my toes.”

Then Grout couldn’t feel anything. He looked at his arm, willing it to move, but it didn’t respond. The 190-pound unstoppable athlete was reduced to a heap on the floor.

In Regina General Hospital in a traction bed that flipped him from front to back every hour, he was face down when he heard his fiancée’s footsteps enter the room the next morning.

“She crawled underneath and looked up at me with a big smile and said ‘what the heck have you done to yourself?’

“I lost it. I cried and I cried and I cried,” Grout described to a group of Grade 6 and 7 leadership students at Surrey Conference Centre on Friday. “For the first time I realized what had happened.”

Ironically, while in university, he had a job driving wheelchair-bound people, many of whom shared their stories. A couple had dived into shallow swimming pools, some were in motorcycle accidents and others were born para- or quadriplegic.

“I always thought in the back of my head ‘man, if I ever found myself in their position, I couldn’t do it.’ ”

But here he was. Confined to bed for the next few weeks, he dropped 30 pounds. After a seven-hour surgery, doctors told his fiancée and family he’d never walk again – a conversation they wouldn’t share with him for another decade.

Determined, Grout worked daily to will movement in his limbs. He proudly managed to make his big toe twitch, and vowed he’d make it down the aisle at his wedding without his wheelchair.

Through further rehabilitation, he gained the use of his fingers and arms and learned to sit up and transfer from bed to wheelchair. His right side is still weak, he says, but he can now walk.

“So now you’re asking, then why are you sitting there in a wheelchair?” he smiled to the students.

The answer: It’s too painful to stand or walk for prolonged periods of time, but short stints are bearable.

Grout, 46, now works for the Rick Hansen Foundation as an ambassador, sharing his story to inspire hope and courage in others.

“Eventually I found there’s more than one path in life.”

He has two teenaged sons, the product of his 20-year marriage. It took him 12 minutes, but he made it down the aisle without his wheelchair.

sreynolds@surreyleader.com

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There is ‘more than one path in life’

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