Brain Injury - Day in the Life with Ray Petro

In this episode of Day in the Life, Taylor speaks with Ray Petro, founder of "Ray’s", an Indoor Mountain Bike Park and a quadriplegic after a mountain biking accident eight years ago. Ray shares the story of how a dream after getting sober eventually became the world’s first indoor mountain bike park, growing from a rough industrial space into a 200,000-square-foot destination for riders of all levels.

Ray also opens up about the accident that changed his life, the impact of quadriplegia on his identity, and the long process of acceptance that helped him move forward. He discusses the importance of support systems, from medical care and accessible transportation to his full-time aide, Calvin, who helps make everyday independence possible.

Throughout the conversation, Ray reflects on gratitude, mental health, adapting old passions in new ways, and finding purpose after a life-changing injury. His story offers a candid look at disability, resilience, community, and the creative drive that continues to shape both his life and the bike park he built.

Transcript

Taylor: 00:00

This podcast episode includes mature themes, strong language, or discussions that some listeners may find sensitive. Viewer discretion is advised. Welcome to the Day in the Life series on the Accessible Community Podcast, where we explore disability and accessibility in everyday life. Each podcast episode is a new lens to broaden our understanding and drive inclusion. For show notes, go to accessiblecommunity.org slash podcasts. Let's make accessibility part of everyday life. Today we're going to be talking with a man named Ray, who I'm really excited to speak with more because he's got a lot of interesting things going on. But before I introduce him, or let him introduce himself, I'm your host for this series, Taylor Dorward. I'm a Caucasian male with short brown hair and blue eyes, and it doesn't matter what I'm wearing today because we're off camera, so no one can see it, which is good. All right, with that, I will pass it over to Ray and let him introduce himself, and then we can get into it.

Ray: 01:16

Okay, my name is Ray Petro. I'm soon to be 60 years old, quadriplegic via an accident, a bicycle accident eight years ago. I'm the owner of the world's first indoor mountain bike park that I started in 2004 called Ray's. I don't know how much more you want me to say.

Taylor: 01:49

That's fully up to you. If you want to cut off there, then we can dig deeper into that kind of stuff later on. For anyone listening, I'm especially excited for this because before I attained my blindness, I was a very avid mountain biker. It's been very interesting chatting with Ray, and I'd love for you to share more about what that experience has been like and if you've adapted the indoor park in any way or anything like that. I'm sure everyone would be very interested to learn more. You talked a little bit about quadriplegia. Can you describe it a little bit more? Is it one size fits all, or do some people tend to have different experiences, like more mobility in some areas and less in others?

Ray: 02:38

You know, the only people I have to judge that by are the people that I was in the hospital with. When I had my accident, there were three or four other people on the spinal floor who had had accidents within the last 60 days. I saw a variety. I saw a poor fellow who fell off his porch monkeying around with his son and was paralyzed from the chin down. There was also a girl who was at her sister's wedding and dove into a swimming pool in Mexico and hit her head. She had the same injuries as I did. Mine was a mountain bike accident where I had a freak accident, fell off my bike, and just happened to hit a tree dead square. It split my helmet in half and broke C5 and C6.

Taylor: 03:47

Oh wow, and I appreciate you talking about that because I think that's really important for everyone to understand. It's a little scary how easy it is to get a brain injury and these injuries. I've known people who just tripped on the sidewalk, hit their head, and became paralyzed in certain ways. I think it just makes us realize how precious life is and appreciate what we have when we have it.

Ray: 04:16

Yeah, yeah. If you want to see it, I don't know if they let you visit, but Metro Hospital in Cleveland, I was in their spinal unit. On one floor, it's nothing but spinal folks, and then above, on the next floor, was nothing but head trauma folks. It's kind of sick how it works, that there's always a steady flow of people getting messed up. It can be from, like you said, tripping over the sidewalk, or somebody saying, “Here, hold my beer. I'm going to jump a picnic table on my bicycle,” doing something stupid. But there's a steady flow of them. In Cleveland, there's probably between two and five a month, and they told me that it radically steps up in the summertime, where you see more stupidity.

Taylor: 05:30

Yeah, that makes sense, with more water sports and people goofing off. I don't want to generalize, though. There are plenty of instances where it's just a freak accident. It's not necessarily anyone's fault because you never know what can happen. Looking back on all the silly things I did when I was younger, I'm surprised and thankful nothing happened back then. I feel like disabilities are very prevalent, but brain injuries are a little less so, and there isn't a greater part of the population that knows someone close who's been affected. But those who do, I feel like they're much more cognizant of those things. I can speak from my experience that everyone in my family and friends, they're always very cautious, like, no one's doing this unsafely or that unsafely. If you're doing something unsafe, never be alone. I think that's something that tends to happen a little bit more when you have more of an attachment to someone who's gone through that kind of trauma.

Ray: 06:47

Yeah, yeah. I didn't personally know anybody who was a quadriplegic my whole life. But I can remember seeing TV ads for a group of attorneys called something Damiano and Smith. One guy was a quadriplegic, and he was always in the advertising. He had the larger lower stomach because he lost all of his muscles, and he was an older fellow. I can remember getting a sick feeling in my stomach whenever I would see this ad. It goes way back into the '80s when I was a kid. It was almost like life telling me, you're going to end up in the same boat. And I did. I ended up in the same boat. I kind of am built like the guy. It's kind of strange. I don't know how to explain it.

Taylor: 07:58

Yeah, that is a little freaky to think about, those kind of foreshadowing moments in life that you may not realize until later. There's a lot of stuff with coincidence, but it's interesting how our experiences make us reevaluate things that happened in the past through a different lens. For me, like you were saying, I've been in quite a few rough accidents while mountain biking back in my days. One time, I was going straight down a hill and got caught in some loose sand, so I couldn't turn around the corner. I went directly into a tree. Oh dear. My clavicle, luckily my head didn't hit, and obviously I was wearing a helmet. Thankfully, I was smart about that. But yeah, I nailed the tree and I just kept going. If that happened a foot to the left, it could have been so different, but I never thought of it because, like most people when they're younger, you feel invincible. It's important to remember we're not; we're very fragile.

Ray: 09:13

Yeah, yeah. The day I got hurt, it was a beautiful September day, and I was kind of tired. I'd been working all day, and I said, “I'll stop and I'll do an easy lap.” I started off doing an easy lap, and it was a freak accident. There was nothing hard about the trail that I was on. My front wheel slipped out for some reason, and as I fell to the left, I put my hands out to break my fall, and my head hit a tree right in between them. Not a very big tree, like an eight-inch diameter tree. There were probably a hundred times that I had crashed, and sometimes I'd knock myself out, or I wasn't sure, and I'd wake up and the first thing I would check was, do all my limbs work? When I got hurt, I woke up, I had knocked myself out, and I remember going, “Well, I got dirt in my mouth. I better get up.” Then when I went to get up, I couldn't get up. Then I tried again, and I tried again, and I tried, and I said, “Oh man, you did it this time. You're paralyzed.” I passed out again, and I didn't have any fear. I thought that was the end. I thought I was going to die on the trail, and I was fine with it. It was kind of weird.

Taylor: 10:51

That's a crazy story.

Ray: 10:53

Yeah, yeah.

Taylor: 10:54

Yeah, and I know for me, I also attained my disability from a freak accident. I'm curious, for me, I went through a time where my identity and my disability, I was struggling with that. Was this part of who I was, and how much of it was I going to let be a part of me? I'm curious, what are your thoughts on that? How does your identity relate to your disability, if at all?

Ray: 11:23

Well, it's very weird that the guy who builds the world's first indoor bike park, and at the time I got hurt, I'm in the cycling community. I don't want to say I was world famous, but I was famous in the mountain bike community. Whether it was in Europe or China or wherever, they all knew about my place. We had had a ton of press over the past 15 years. Here I am, I'm the guy out of everybody that gets hurt. I was like, wow, that kind of sucks. I could go riding, go to Europe and make a phone call and be riding with friends there, go to the West Coast and ride with friends there, and go up into Canada and do the same thing, and now it's all over with. The question was my identity. It really messed with my identity. I didn't know what I was going to do. The first six months, I begged them just to pull the plug. I would go to sleep hoping I wouldn't wake up. Then the doctors convinced me. They said, “It'll get better. It'll get better. You just have to stick with it.” The first year was not very happy. I was medicated pretty good; that helped. I told the doctor when I was still in the ICU, I said, “If I'm going to continue to live, you may as well start me on some antidepressants now because I can tell you, when I get out of this neck collar and get the trach out of me, it'll probably help my outlook.” They did, and it did really change my outlook on things. One other thing that almost killed me in my past helped me with the accident. In my 20s, I drank a lot, did a lot of cocaine, and was just your normal partying dude. By the time I hit 30, I knew I wasn't happy. I was miserable, so I decided I better go to AA and get sober. My father had done the same thing 35 years before, so it was in my family, and I believed in it. I went there and started my life over at 30 and learned a lot about acceptance. The whole premise of AA, the first step, is that you have accepted that you're powerless over alcohol and your life has become unmanageable. I figured it's got to work the same way with this accident. I just have to accept it, and then I can be free of it. They sent a psychiatrist to talk to me while I was still on a trach, I think, and they wanted to assess me. I remember it was a lovely Black lady, beautiful, and she came in and we started talking about things. I said to her, “You know, I know what the key to this whole thing is.” She said, “What?” I said, “I just have to accept that I've gotten hurt and my life is going to be different, and then I can move on.” She said, “Wow. Where'd you learn that?” I explained to her about my past and whatever. I said to her, “I don't think I'm going to need your services. I think I've got this handled.” She said, “Okay, well, if you need me, you can always call me.” When she verified that I was on the right track, I just stuck with that. I just rolled with it. Eventually, by the second year, I started feeling normal, and I realized I had to figure out something else to do because I wasn't going to be able to ride bikes anymore the way I used to. Right at the time I got hurt, these guys started building these three-wheeled electric mountain bikes. It was for people who had lost a limb or whatever. There were a lot of vets coming home, a lot of vets getting older, and they were selling them to that community and to people like me. That kind of kept me busy. I owned a couple of those, and I never got really back in the woods like I had hoped for, but I can still travel around the neighborhood and go on a long excursion with one of my buddies. It makes me feel like I'm at least on a bike. The one I have now, all the people that manufactured them found out that four wheels work better than three. I've got a current four-wheeled version, and the things are pretty amazing. It's like a bicycle on steroids with a big battery in it and a seat that I can strap myself into. I put my Roho on the seat, and it'll keep me busy for a couple hours. When I get home, I'm exhausted like I was riding a bike, and I don't have to pedal at all. It's all motorized, but just the visual input and having to turn it and brake and do the basics is enough. I'm exhausted by the end of the day.

Taylor: 18:36

I would imagine so.

Ray: 18:40

Yeah, so I've gotten some of that back from that. The other thing I did was I looked in my past and said, well, back in the '80s, I was into stereo equipment and speakers and all that kind of stuff. After I graduated high school, I kind of lost interest in it, but I looked that world back up online, and I started designing some speakers. I sold a bunch of them. I buy and sell equipment, and it kind of gives me something to do. It's got websites like the bicycles do. I can go on the websites and read about new equipment and new advances in amplifiers and all that kind of stuff, like I would be reading about advances they're making in cycling. It helped fill some of the hole that was left. But yeah, I don't know. Did I answer the question?

Taylor: 19:53

Yeah, absolutely. Ray, that's a really powerful story, and I think it's awesome that you've gotten back into biking. I know it's different, but that's really cool, and that you can still get that cognitive effort and some of the physical effort in your mind from doing that biking. I think that's awesome and really cool that you're able to get back to that a little bit. I'd love to learn, and I'm sure anyone listening would be interested as well, what was that process like of creating that first indoor park? What made you want to do it, and what's it like now running it?

Ray: 20:36

Well, it all started in, I'll go back to the beginning, in '96. The last time I got drunk was Thanksgiving weekend in '96. That whole summer before that, I was sober and I started mountain biking. When fall came, all these new friends I had were like, “Well, we don't ride in the winter. The trails are snow-covered and it's nasty out. It's not like summertime.” My last drunk, I woke up and had this dream about building an indoor bike park. I woke up and remembered the dream. It was my brain trying to fill a need. I wanted to keep riding my bike, but fall and winter had come, and it just wasn't available. My brain was trying to figure out a workaround, and that's what happened. From '97 to 2004, I had a file on it. I would draw pictures and make notes, or when I had an idea, I would go write it down. One winter, I made some models of how it might work. Fast forward to spring 2004, and I went to visit a family friend who's an older Italian guy that I used to work for. He was like a second father to me. I stopped over, I think it was probably at Easter, and we were talking about various things over dinner. He was in between businesses, and he goes, “Man, if I was younger, I would do this and this and this.” Then he looked at me and said, “You're a young man. Do you have anything that you want to do or things that bother you?” I said, “The only thing that drives me crazy is I've got this idea to build this indoor mountain bike park.” He said, “Well, what does it look like?” I said, “I don't know.” There were a lot of buildings that were for lease at the time. I said, “You know all the buildings that are for lease, these real big ones that are like 100,000 square feet?” He said, “Yeah.” I said, “I don't think you use dirt, but if I built it out of wood,” which was right up my alley because I was a carpenter, “you could use logs and rocks, and then you could paint the wood brown to make it look like dirt.” He said, “Sounds awesome. How come you haven't attempted to do it?” I said, “Well, I don't know. Either I didn't have the money at the time, or I was working on my carpentry business.” He said, “I think you should follow up with that. I think it's an excellent idea.” I really respected the guy, and I'm like, here's a guy who's probably 60 years old and hasn't been on a bicycle since the 1940s, and he thinks it's cool. So I'm thinking, if he thinks it's cool, I know my buddies will love it. I stopped at a convenience store to get some gas and some smokes, and I picked up a Cleveland Plain Dealer. In the morning while I was having my coffee, I opened it up to industrial spaces, and the first ad said, “Clean space, low rent.” I said, “I'll phone it up when we take our lunch break.” So I met my guys on a job. We were putting a room addition on someone's house, and I called the number around, I don't know, probably like 10 o'clock in the morning. I said, “I'd like to talk to somebody about the space that you have for rent.” They said, “Oh, you want to talk to Susie.” I'm thinking in my head, Susie's going to hang up on me. She's not going to get this idea. So we get to talking, and she says, “So what do you do?” I said, “Well, I've got this dream to build the world's first indoor mountain bike park.” She says, “So what's it like?” I said, “Ramps and logs and stuff.” She says, “I think it's an amazing idea. I've got the perfect space for you. Why don't you come down and have lunch with me?” My jaw dropped. I couldn't believe she said that. I drove over there. We didn't have lunch; she ended up just showing me the space. She showed me the first space, which was too small and didn't have any windows. I said, “Yeah, it's a little dark and a little too small.” So she slides open this ginormous factory door, and as she slides it open, I look up, and there's light. It's got thousands of feet of skylights, and the sun is beaming in like a Bible card. She goes, “This is where you should build it.” It was like I heard the angels sing. I was completely dumbfounded. I'm walking around, and the place is a train wreck: hundreds of broken windows, neighborhood kids had been hitting golf balls in from the street and listening for the windows to break, it's full of water, birds flying around, the lights don't work, the emergency lighting doesn't work, the heaters don't work, and nothing works. She says, “Here are the keys. Lock up when you're done. Walk around and think about it.” So I did for an hour or two, and then I went back and saw her. She goes, “So what do you think?” I said, “Oh man, I don't know.” She goes, “Well, go home and think about it and let me know.” So I go home, and the next morning I woke up and it was all I could think about. I didn't sleep well, and I remember sitting on the edge of my bed. It was like the universe had called my bluff that I really wanted to do this, but it was going to take every nickel I had. I stood up, walked up to the mirror in front of the sink, and looked at myself. It was like, are you a man or are you going to be a puss? It really hit me, and I decided that day that I was going to do it. I ended up striking a deal with her for no rent because the place was in such bad shape. I said, “It's going to cost me $50,000 just to get it where we can have lighting and operate in here.” That was how it all started. Thanksgiving weekend 2004 was when it opened, and I had the idea in '96 on Thanksgiving weekend. So it opened on Thanksgiving weekend eight years later. We've been in business for 22 years, and we've had probably a dozen copycats all over the globe. Some aren't open, some still are. I still have a fabulous relationship with Susie, and we've expanded probably 10 times. There was more space available in the complex, so we just kept expanding. We started at 66,000 square feet, and now we're at over 200,000 square feet. We've got a large area for beginners and first timers, and the general public has started to come now too, so not just the true mountain bikers. We've had to try to accommodate them. We don't want anybody to get hurt. People still do get banged up, but it's not as bad as the trampoline park or some of those places that have a lot of injuries.

Taylor: 30:30

Oh yeah, not nearly as much regulation. They're like, “Here's your pair of socks. Go crazy.”

Ray: 30:38

Yeah, yeah. Running it now, years ago, like 10 or 12 years ago, there were young guys who were in their 20s, and I said, “I'm not going to be able to do this forever.” I was in really great shape when I got hurt, when I was 50. I could still outwork these 30-year-olds. But when I got hurt, they were ready to step up, and they did. They stepped up and ran it like it was their own. I've got a wonderful crew still to this day that runs it. You would think there'd be a lot to do, but there really isn't. I suffer from more boredom than anything.

Taylor: 31:39

Yeah, I would imagine that can be a challenge. But that's incredible, and I'm envious that we don't have something like that near where I live. And yes, I do have blindness, but I'd still love to get out there and do some trail riding. I'm in South Carolina.

Ray: 31:57

Okay, gotcha.

Taylor: 31:58

Yeah. I've thought about doing some tandem mountain biking with my uncle, and that's who I had done most of that with. But that's just an awesome idea. I imagine it and feel like I would have so much fun with that, planning out how we want to make it look, how many trails, and how we're going to make them more challenging. That just seems like a really fun creative process. Do you still participate in the creative side of it?

Ray: 32:28

Oh, yeah. The first week in May, we close, except we're closed all week except for Sunday nights. We're open from two to eight on Sunday nights, and it's mainly just the local kids who like to ride the jumps and stuff. There's enough of them that it's worth being open. In the summertime, my goal was always to be changing things. The riders come, and each year it's a new product. We leave their favorites alone, their favorite jump lines and all that stuff, and then stuff starts to get tired, and we're like, “You know what? Let's rip this out. We'll build something fresh. Let's rip this out. We'll build something fresh.” We actually work a couple of years in advance. We know what we're going to rip out and what's going to get replaced. Everybody loves that. They just love to come back and see what we've changed. That's not the norm. The only thing you could compare us to would be an indoor skateboard park, and indoor skateboard parks never change anything. They build it and just leave it alone for 20 years. I took the opposite approach. I was like, if I don't keep changing this and making it bigger and better, people are going to lose interest. So, yeah, I kind of set the tone. I come up with the ideas, my guys throw in a bunch of ideas, and we work together as a team. Some of their ideas get thrown out, some of mine get thrown out, and we come up with a really good plan for the summer. They switch from working the counter and running the place to putting their tool belts on, and everybody becomes carpenters.

Taylor: 34:38

Nice. Yeah, that's a really great business model. I love how you're always evolving it, and I'm sure your customers love that, coming back and seeing what changed, especially the ones who are really passionate about it. It's like Christmas morning, seeing what Santa left under the tree. It seems like a fun time.

Ray: 34:58

It's a similar feeling, it really is. They love the adventure of it all.

Taylor: 35:04

Yeah, that's really cool. It's cool that you get to contribute on the creative side still, like pitching new ideas for new trails or obstacles or anything like that. But you had said that you get bored, and I'm curious, I know you had mentioned the electric mountain bike that you use, but do you have any other coping strategies or things to keep yourself busy?

Ray: 35:34

Let me think about that. Basically, it's like, “Hey Calvin, I need a drink, please.” While I've got you on the line, I'd like to introduce you to my other half. This is my full-time aide. His name is Calvin, and he just stopped in to give me a drink.

Taylor: 36:05

Awesome. I don't know if you can hear me, but hey, Calvin. Hey, man.

Ray: 36:11

He makes life a lot easier. I was through a whole bunch of different aides, and some of them were okay, some of them were fine. One of the ones I liked decided that he had to go back to Africa for something. There aren't many male aides who work in our system here. They're mostly older women. Calvin answered an ad that we put up looking for an aide, and he came out to the house, and he's been here ever since. It's been like seven years.

Taylor: 37:03

Yeah, and that's a really interesting perspective that I wouldn't have thought of, and I'm sure anyone listening may not have thought about themselves.

Ray: 37:12

When he goes on vacation, I'll get a little lonely. I really do. He's like my, I mean, without him, not much happens. I have a sister who helps out a lot, but it's my little sister. I can't tell dirty jokes to my little sister, you know. So he and I have a great time, and he takes me down to the bike park. I'll go spend a couple hours down there saying hi to the customers, and he's like my shadow. He actually works for, it's either the state of Ohio or Medicare or Medicaid or something like that. Depending on what state you're in, some states have better care packages than others. Ohio is one of the best.

Taylor: 38:15

Well, that's good.

Ray: 38:16

Yeah, so he can be with me for 12 hours a day, six days a week. It doesn't cost me anything. The state pays him, and it's a huge help. It would be a huge expense if I had to pay the bill. Huge.

Taylor: 38:35

Yeah, yeah. What's unfortunate is that people who don't have that kind of infrastructure where they live might have to pay for it out of pocket or just go without that added support, which I'm sure greatly helps your independence, I would imagine.

Ray: 38:53

Yes, yes. I'm fortunate that when I got hurt, I had a nice Jeep that was almost paid for, so I traded that in and got a nice handicapped-accessible van. So I still have wheels. If I want to go someplace, I just say to Calvin, “Hey, let's go to the store.” He goes out and fires up the van, and off we go. Probably the biggest slap in the face to this whole getting hurt thing, I'm not a real religious guy, but if I ever meet my maker, I'm going to ask him, “What was the plan? Why don't I have use of my hands?” Even if I was a paraplegic, I'd still have use of my hands. There are guys who still use their workshops and are still able to construct things, where I can't do anything. I can't move my fingers. I'm looking forward to asking him what the whole intent of this was.

Taylor: 40:09

Yeah, yeah. I'm curious, when it comes to communicating, for example, if you want to tell Calvin, “Hey, let's go to the bike park,” how do you mostly do that? Does it vary depending on the situation?

Ray: 40:24

Yeah, I have a stylus that's strapped to my right hand, so I'm able to use my iPad really well. I've got this little thing that's like an arm with wheels, and my iPad is attached to it. It's right in front of me. Then I have a phone that's there, so I can send him a text. I also have an Alexa that I can tell to phone him, my sister, or basically anybody in my contacts.

Taylor: 41:08

Yeah, these are all incredible insights. I've spoken with a lot of different people. I think my interview with you is number 16 or 17, and I learn something great from every single one. But with yours, I'm learning so much, and it's really fascinating. You have a really interesting story, with the mountain biking park and how you live day to day. It's just so interesting to learn about.

Ray: 41:39

Oh, well, thank you. In the spots where we discuss the mountain bike park and stuff, you're welcome to go online. There are all kinds of pictures if you want to throw some pictures up.

Taylor: 41:53

Oh yeah, I think that'd be a great idea. We have an editor who does great visual placements throughout the podcast, especially the audio only. I think that'd be great, and I'd love to attach some links to your parts in the show notes.

Ray: 42:07

Yeah, there are lots of videos. There are thousands and thousands of YouTube videos that either we shot, the customers shot, or maybe you can use some of that too.

Taylor: 42:23

Yeah, yeah. I know myself, I would love to see if there's a video tour of the complex. That'd be cool.

Ray: 42:31

Yeah, yeah. Usually a couple of my customers do a video when they're like, “Here's what's new at Ray's Bike Park,” and they'll do a whole video on it.

Taylor: 42:51

Nice, that's cool. When I used to do a lot of mountain biking with my uncle, he would mostly strap a GoPro on and post it online. He didn't have much of a following, but it was just fun to share the perspective of what it's like to be on those trails, especially the more advanced ones. He was a guy who biked a lot. He still does every now and then, but at that time it was three or four times a week.

Ray: 43:22

Yeah, that was me. Yeah, yeah.

Taylor: 43:26

I was more of a once-every-other-month kind of person, but oh man, it's so much fun. If anyone listening hasn't tried it, I'm sure Ray would agree: give it a try. Remember, safety is key, but try it out. Start with the easier, flatter trails. It's a blast.

Ray: 43:45

Yeah, it's really life-changing. I've always been a pretty happy guy, but I read something about how there are antidepressants in dirt. So when you're out there riding with your buddies and his bike's kicking up dirt, and you're kicking up dirt, you're actually ingesting antidepressants that are in the soil. I became almost addicted to it. If I wasn't riding, I was out doing trail maintenance or digging a new trail. It was always something. I was 50 years old, but it was like I was 14 again. I started riding when I was 30, so I'm really grateful that I had a wonderful 20 years. I met all my heroes and all the professionals that we'd seen in the magazines when they were still around, and I became friends with them. I really had a remarkable 20-year run before I got hurt.

Taylor: 45:06

That's incredible.

Ray: 45:07

Yeah, it was pretty amazing. I don't look back on it and feel, I don't know. I try to feel grateful that at least I had those 20 years, and things are different now. I've had several situations where I got an infection or a UTI or something and found myself in the hospital. There were times when they said I was near death. God, I've been intubated probably six times. It seems like whenever I go to the hospital, they think I'm dying and they intubate me. I've been asked several times, “Do you want us to stop doing it?” I'm like, “Well, I'd love for you to stop doing it. I don't think I need it,” but they thought I did. The question comes up, “Do you want to keep living?” I was like, “Yeah, I do.” I have pretty much the same feeling. If somebody had asked me that question when I was in my 40s and said, “Do you want to die?” I would have said, “Well, of course not. I'm having a great time.” I'm not quite there, but I'm close to it, and I think that says something. Back when I said that first year I was hoping I would die, I don't think that way anymore. I feel like I'm pretty normal. My state of being is pretty good.

Taylor: 47:09

Well, that's awesome. I know, especially after speaking with a lot of different people, that's a very common thread: the mental side of it. It can be a battle and ongoing. For me, after I attained my blindness, I went through a similar time where it was hard to accept where I was. But once I did, it helped so much on the mental side. I stopped pitying myself. I realized my life wasn't over, and there was still so much I could do. That's awesome that you see that now and have that outlook on life.

Ray: 47:51

Yeah, I think like you just said, whether you knew you said it or not, you said that you accepted the fact that it had happened. I think that's the first step: you just have to accept the fact that you're alive, and a lot of people spent a lot of time and money on you to see that you would stay alive. I don't know if it's got anything to do with not wanting to let them down, but a lot of people invested a lot in me when I was lying in the ICU for three months. I know my insurance company, after they started into the second million dollars' worth of bills, decided to cut bait and had me find somebody else to insure me.

Taylor: 48:52

Yeah, yeah. That's another part of these kinds of situations that a lot of people just aren't aware of. That's a whole other side that a lot of people unfortunately have to deal with.

Ray: 49:06

Yeah, yeah. I was very fortunate. The whole thing didn't cost me a nickel. I think I paid my deductible, which was whatever that was, $2,500 a year or something. That was it. Not to move on to politics, but a lot of the red states, especially the southern states, didn't take the Obama money and just left all the people in those states hanging. They were on their own. I didn't have that situation up here in Ohio.

Taylor: 49:55

Yeah, that is good that you have that kind of infrastructure set up there where they're able to help you out in that situation. Especially thinking about people in other countries, like more impoverished countries, who are going through a disability, it really puts things into perspective how lucky we are to have access to decent health care at times.

Ray: 50:22

I mean, the doctor who took care of me for years was the head of the spinal organization for the United States for a good five or 10 years. Greg Nemanowski, Dr. Nemo, they call him. He has since retired, but here was a guy who was on the spinal floor for 30 years, and that was who I had watching out over me. We've actually become friends.

Taylor: 51:04

So nice, yeah.

Ray: 51:07

I forgot what the question was, but I hope I answered it.

Taylor: 51:13

Oh no, you're fine. I kind of did too, but it got lost in the conversation. One thing I'm taking away from all this is how much I'm learning from it.

Ray: 51:23

Mm-hmm.

Taylor: 51:24

I'm someone who's always wanting to learn more, and a lot of this I didn't know. I'm curious, are there any major misconceptions about quadriplegia that you wish more people knew? Maybe when it comes to interacting with you, or just about how you communicate, or anything like that?

Ray: 51:47

Well, I've never had anybody ever not be absolutely gracious to me, whether I was in a restaurant, at my own bike park, or wherever I was. No, I've never had anybody be anything more than just, “Can we help you, sir?” That's never been a problem.

Taylor: 52:17

That's fantastic.

Ray: 52:18

I don't know. Is it a problem in other parts of the country, or with some of the other people that you've talked to?

Taylor: 52:29

Yeah, and it can also differ quite a bit depending on the disability. If I'm talking about more of a niche one, or one that, for example, when we were talking about blindness, blindness is a disability that is often portrayed in media, whether it's a movie or TV show.

Ray: 52:51

Yeah.

Taylor: 52:52

Because of that, there have been a lot of misconceptions developed over the years because people who haven't had personal exposure, that's all they know. For example, when I tell someone I'm blind, there are plenty of times where they're very confused and even sometimes don't believe me because I'm not wearing dark, blacked-out glasses, or my eyes aren't all white. I have color and a pupil in my eye, and I don't get around with a guide dog or a white cane. A lot of people think that when you're blind, it equals complete lack of sight, but in reality, the vast majority of people who identify as blind still have some functional vision. It's been very interesting. There have been a lot of other similar situations I've found with other disabilities because disabilities as a whole are a wide spectrum, but even each individual disability can be its own spectrum. It's just been very interesting to see how much they differ and how much the vast population is ignorant of some of these things. I find it really interesting to point out, and since we have the platform, I'd love to point those out where I can.

Ray: 54:19

Yeah, yeah. I could see where that could end up being a problem.

Taylor: 54:29

Yeah, it can be, but I feel like there's also a misconception that people have that people are often out to get them or are always judging. Certainly, sometimes that is the case, but similar to you, throughout my experience living with a disability, it's been fairly uplifting that the environment around me has been so accommodating and supportive of what I've gone through and what I'm trying to do. People are always able to point me to a restroom if I need it, or just lend their shoulder if I need help navigating through a populated area. So it's nice to hear that you've had a similar positive experience with the individuals around you and your environment.

Ray: 55:18

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's good.

Taylor: 55:21

I feel like we're doing well on time, but I would love to finish it up by getting some final thoughts from you. I know we've talked quite a bit about what you've been through, but I'm curious, do you have anything you would want to share with anyone who's also living with quadriplegia or any other kind of impairment, or just people in general? Any advice or anything you want to leave the listeners with? That's a loaded question, so feel free to take your time.

Ray: 55:57

Yeah, I don't know. I think I kind of live it like I would answer that the way AA works. AA essentially says you don't take anybody else's inventory, and you don't tell them how to live and stay sober. Everybody figures out their own way, and that's kind of how I handle this. I've only met a handful of people. It's been when I've sold one of my handicapped bicycles to another handicapped person that I didn't know. Everybody's been really nice. I had a guy come down who was from Canada, and he actually drove himself down here. He didn't have any place to stay, and I'm like, “Well, you can stay with me.” He ended up staying for three days, and we were just hanging out together. Then he drove home. I don't go to the spinal functions. I don't get wrapped up in the whole spinal world like some people do. I don't feel uncomfortable, but I don't go out of my way to be involved in that part of society. I don't know why.

Taylor: 57:27

There's nothing wrong with that. Throughout these interviews, I've experienced that some people like being a part of a community that can relate to their situation, and others are like, “I'm fine on my own.” There's nothing wrong with either. It's just preference.

Ray: 57:45

Yeah, yep. That's how I've played it with monumental things that could have killed me, either the drinking or the crash. That's how I basically have played it both ways. But that's just me.

Taylor: 58:05

Very nice. Well, thank you, Ray, so much. It's been great to get to know you as a person, but also incredible to hear what you've done in your life. It's been really interesting, and I'm looking forward to sharing your story and your perspective on what it's been like for you.

Ray: 58:22

Well, thank you for including me in your podcast. I'm very honored, and I look forward to hearing how it all comes out.

Taylor: 58:33

Yeah, absolutely. All right, with that, thank you everyone for listening and/or watching the graphics on the screen. We'll make sure to put any relevant links in the show notes, so feel free to leave a like and react to this podcast. We'd love to hear what the community wants to hear more of. Thank you all so much for listening, and we'll see you soon for the next one. Thank you all for joining us while we explore accessibility and disability. If you enjoyed this podcast, check out more episodes and show notes at accessiblecommunity.org slash podcasts. Remember, be accessible, be inclusive.