Skydiving & Becoming a Paralympic Snowboard Champion with Tyler Turner

0:01Tyler Turner has always been a bit of a daredevil and all around adventure athlete. He grew up skiing and snowboarding and eventually made a career as a skydiving instructor. But in 2015, Tyler had an accident that resulted in the amputation of both of his legs. It was unclear if he'd ever be able to return to the sports he loved, especially snowboarding. I didn't want to ride because I was about to find out maybe that I can't snowboard again. And then like, I'd only gone like 30 feet, but in that 30 feet, I went, yep, this is snowboarding. I was just like giggling and screaming in pain, but like screaming in joy.

0:42And like, it was, it was just a really cool moment. And then we pulled over to the side of the run and I took the prosthetics off. And then that season I just spent trying to figure out how to ride more. That first ride was the beginning of an important journey for Tyler. Since then, he's become a three-time para-snowboard cross-world champion and even won gold at the 2022 Paralympic Games. Outside of snowboarding, Tyler has also made a return to surfing and skydiving, and in 2017, he became the first bilateral amputee to fly in a wingsuit. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios production presented by Capital One and the REI Co-op MasterCard.

1:33Tyler Turner, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. I'm really excited to speak to you, and you're fresh off a plane from Chile. Like, literally, you just walked in the door. What were you doing there? I was down filming some content for one of my amazing sponsors. And it's going to be such a cool piece. I can't wait to see it. That's pretty awesome. Okay, so I want to go back. So you're a stud. And it sounds like you've always been a stud. Like you're a Paralympic gold medalist in snowboarding, the first bilateral amputee to fly in a wingsuit. And I feel like you also placed in the adaptive surfing competition at a high level.

2:09Were you always outdoorsy? were you always attracted to adventure sports? Tell me how you kind of got into all of this in Canada where you grew up. Well, yeah, action sports, adventure sports, been everything forever. I grew up in northern Saskatchewan. So it's like, you know, quads and snowmobiles and ATVs. And then I moved to Alberta, which is mountains and just the opportunity for rock climbing started climbing at a young age. And it was like, I work and I climb and I guide whitewater rafts and I working towards, you know, ski, snowboard, guiding certs and competing, but moderation is not a word in my life.

2:46So it's just like all in all the time. I dive headfirst and I think I'm an addict, but I like to think that they're healthy addictions. Were your parents like this? Did you have siblings who were like this? Who fostered that in you or is it just something you were born with? Yeah, I always say I was just born with a screw loose, I think. I don't know where it comes from. I don't have a great explanation. It's just like, for me doing these things, what gives me joy, it makes me happy. You know, it's so cliche, but like I feel more alive when I'm doing this stuff. And if I'm not doing it, I'm just like sad.

3:20And funny enough, growing up, my brother actually was kind of the crazy one. Like I wouldn't ride roller coasters, but he, he wanted, you know, the biggest, scariest roller coaster or whatever. But for me, it's about, um, planning like perfect planning and perfect execution. And that's why I love the sports that I participate in, because there isn't a lot of room for imperfect execution.

3:45Tyler always enjoyed adventure sports that require focus and precision. Growing up, he loved snowboarding and slalom skiing, and he discovered surfing as a teenager. After high school, Tyler went on a four-month surf trip to Australia with his friends. While he was in Byron Bay near Brisbane, Tyler tried skydiving for the first time. He thought it'd be a one-off experience, but from the moment he jumped out of a plane, he was hooked. You hear everyone doing a skydive in Byron Bay, so I'm going to do the touristy thing. And I did a skydive. It was amazing. Did it with one of my best friends, my brother, and a couple friends from back home.

4:26And Landon, we're all high-fiving, and I think everyone's like, that was so cool. and my like I was just like that was amazing but these guys get to go do it again I know the instructors we were with the filmers and they they're like high-fiving us and they're going to do this again like man that was cool but like one and done that's just not for me moderation as I said not my thing and so I just it started this like thought process saving up money and and trying to, you know, get myself to a place where I could make enough money to, um, support getting a solo license. And then, uh, it pretty much consumed my life for the next five years ish and got all my, my coaching certifications and everything.

5:08So it became a job. Like I w it wasn't costing me$200 every weekend. It was making me 200 bucks on a weekend. So I think on the surface, you look at skydiving, you're like, jump out the plane, float down, we pull parachute land safe but um it's so nuanced and there's there's so many different avenues in skydiving and that's what really hooked me is like trying to perfect your human flight and how far can you push it and how you know how precise can you be and with flying your body and some people fly at such an incredible level and so there actually is this like progression within the sport that i don't think most people see and that's what really hooked me

5:51Tyler was 21 when he got his skydiving license, and he soon started exploring other ways to fly, like wingsuiting. For those unfamiliar, wingsuiting is a bit different from skydiving. Wingsuit divers wear a suit with fabric webbing between their arms and body and between their legs. This allows them to glide through the air like a bird. Once Tyler was introduced to wingsuiting, it quickly became another obsession. For years, he lived like a classic adventure dirtbag, sleeping in a van, jumping out of planes, climbing, snowboarding, and doing pretty much any action sport you could imagine. But in 2015, when Tyler was 29 years old, an accident changed the course of his life.

6:4029 is like the most pivotal year for just a human in general like I've talked to so many people who had like a big life change at 29. I mean that was almost eight years ago today and you had this horrific accident skydiving and you still don't know what happened. Yeah you got it I am I've tried everything like hypnotherapy and all the different ways to try and remember what actually happened because no one saw it so really don't know what happened I mean I made a massive mistake there was lots of things that played into it well what I was doing was was a job I film people doing their first tandem skydive or doing a tandem skydive I have a helmet that has cameras on it and then when you land your parachute you kind of get an opportunity to practice some skills and push yourself a little bit on landings.

7:32And, you know, I just made a mistake doing some pretty high performance stuff and I hit the ground going extremely fast. And I'm lucky because most people that make that mistake die. And then I was in a coma for quite a while after. And then I have no memory for a while after that. So I actually am definitely missing like the next two weeks to a month of my life is kind of just wiped. I've tried so hard to get memories back and I can't. I'm lucky I've heard the stories and seeing the photos and everything. And so I've kind of created memories of that. I actually only had one leg amputated at that time.

8:05But it was just this like, my back's broken, my brain injury is really devastating. I've been trying to learn how to talk again. And not just for like a couple of weeks, but like for years. And like over that time, it's this longer process where the first few months I just was like, why why put in the effort why show up what like what's the point because there isn't anything out there for me it's all gone identity everything community it's gone so why but then it kind of comes around and and you know it like gets the point of like all right i'll show up when i got to that point of like i'll give it a try i think that was kind of the like like i say instead of like waking up and be like, oh my God, I have no legs.

8:56I don't want to do this. And then like, oh, but I'm going to do this. And I overcome. It's more like, oh man, my legs, everything's messed up. I lost everything. This sucks. And then it got to like, well, I guess I'll wake up every day at least. You know, like that it's, it's not as like amazing. I appreciate the realness in which you tell a story. I think like none of us can relate to that, but I think everybody can relate at some point to like not wanting to get up out of bed and like it just sucking and then you just have to do it even if you don't want to and then the day is gone and you're like okay that was a day and then there's another day but I'm sure there's it's not linear I've come up with this theory essentially or this way I kind of approach things now that I've learned through all this and um I call it perpetual forward motion like if literally in one day all you can just put one foot in front of the other.

9:53Like that's all you got done was one foot in front of the other that day. That's forward. You know, that's all that matters. Like just keep the momentum alive. I got this theory from, from Dr. John Coleman, this mental performance coach that I worked with and amazing guy. And he said, if that pendulum swinging, there's energy. And when that pendulum dies, when it stops, that's, that's where it's hard. You know, it's hard to rebuild momentum. It's that apathy is hard to recover from. So he's like, sure, you're mad, you're angry. Like you can imagine where that pendulum is swinging to. It's like, there's so much power in there.

10:41I want to go back. So you have like extreme physical pain and there's just your whole identity is gone mental pain like going to the bathroom now is just it's hard like everything is hard it's still hard and it's still probably the thing that i hate the most about being a double amputee is going to the bathroom and having having a back injury because um not only just getting to the toilet sucks in the middle of the night but then also like using the toilet sucks and i know you've had people with spinal cord injuries on here before and um it's that part that nobody talks about it's like but like i would i don't my my prosthetics they're awesome like they work well they're i mean they suck sometimes but i would i wouldn't trade them back in you know like it my life's great with with two prosthetic legs i would do anything to trade my back injury and my brain injury like those two affect my life so much more and they're they're invisible right you don't see them how soon after your first leg was amputated was your second leg amputated a year and a half 18 months oh wow that's a long time yeah i decided like i'm gonna commit to the rehab i'm gonna commit to everything i'm gonna do what's asked of me and i'm gonna try but i kind of like had this feeling that it wasn't gonna work and And as the time went on, I had with my right leg, I had this reference of what a good leg feels like.

12:17And just because I have, you know, my original meat leg there doesn't mean it's good. And it was holding me back. And after a lot of surgeries and the pain stayed the same, I would just be like, so if you want to mess this one up and cut it off, you know, like, just feel free. like i got to the point where i'm like screw this foot and um yeah it was a wild decision but um it was the right one i saw this like potential that if i amputated my second leg i could go do the sports i want to do again i might be able to skydive surf snowboard and um i got out of surgery like smiling high-fiving like life was good and then after a couple weeks this like feeling set in a like, Ooh, you know, was that, was that a good idea?

13:09And, um, yeah, I sat with that for a few months while I waited for it to heal, to get my second prosthetic and walking into the, um, prosthetics office in Vancouver. I'm like, I'm going to find out here in like, well, 30 minutes. If this decision I've been pondering for like two years was the right one. And it was kind of a crazy moment. I stood up and I was like, yeah, it hurt like hell. But I was like, it's natural.

13:43When Tyler first started wearing prosthetics, he was still in unbearable pain. Over time, the pain has settled down, though, and Tyler has returned to some of his favorite activities.

14:04In 2015, Tyler Turner was in a skydiving accident and lost both of his legs. Since then, he's figured out how to return to some of his favorite sports. He started small, adjusting to his new prosthetics and testing what his body was capable of. But before he could start snowboarding or skydiving again, he had to overcome an even bigger obstacle.

14:29so what was the turning point for you like from when you decided i'm gonna do sports again just differently i mean the turning point was committing to getting off painkillers really because i wasn't able to pursue what i wanted to do with how deep i got down that hole And my passion for skydiving and snowboarding and surfing and the potential to do those sports again is what really motivated me to figure that out. And it was undoubtedly the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. And I've lost two legs and had a back injury and a brain injury. And getting off of opiates is like not even close.

15:17Like prosthetics was easy compared to that. But once I kind of got through that, that was where I was sitting there. It would have been like January 2nd, 2020. And I was sitting there off painkillers. And now I have two prosthetic legs. And I was like, all right, let's send it. How did you get off of them? I tried multiple times, multiple ways. how I got off was I had something that I wanted so bad. I wanted more than that. And that was sports. In the end, I went cold turkey, which I would not recommend. It was as brutal as I could ever. I can't even describe it. It's impossible to describe how bad it was.

16:06But yeah, I tried other methods before and I wasn't having success and I wanted to skydive so bad and I wanted to surf and everything but honestly skydiving and base jumping because there's not that space for messing around like that so those sports forced me to be fully sober and clear my mind. Wow well good for you um thank you and thanks for talking about that. So what was the first activity you did like that really made you feel yourself again so yeah I think skydiving was the first um I mean up there like with activities I used to do I mean obviously I played other sports wheelchair rugby and stuff I was playing some sports to keep my mind and like my brain just at ease a little bit but skydiving was the first of like those sports that I love that I went back to because as much as it seems crazy and extreme really like you get this nice little ride up to altitude an airplane you can roll out of that airplane if you want and then you're floating on a bed of air and then provided you land it softly and safely um you know there's there's there's a lot of skill goes into it but like it's not the most taxing thing on your body so i was actually able to like get wheelchaired up to an airplane um and then got into that airplane it was it was quite the scene and my biggest worry at that time with like still my back and pelvis and everything was in pretty rough shape was like how am I gonna land this and found a really nice it was kind of sandy and soft and um came in slid on my butt and then they brought my wheelchair out to me and it was a pretty cool moment but I was I was happy like skydiving was accessible to me which is kind of crazy to think it was the most accessible sport, but it was there for the taking.

18:05And, yeah, it got all those feelings back. It got all those juices flowing again, and it's pretty amazing. Amazing. And then you just kept doing it. Yeah. After that first one, I proved that I was still capable. Then there was no more. Reservations were gone at that point. I did one skydive the first day, and then after that, I was back to doing four or five maybe. a day and just progressing and trying to figure out how to fly this new body. Like I was flying with prosthetics, without prosthetics, um, you know, different, like I was saying earlier, like there's all these different, you know, branches of skydiving and it's more nuanced than you'd think.

18:47And so I was trying different types of free flying and, and can I still do all these things? And, you know, I just kind of, the progression kept going and I just wanted to get back to the point where I recertified all my coaching certifications and they checked me out and said, yeah, you're still good to go. And I got back teaching people in the sky and just just got back to everything I love. And now it's just normal.

19:17It didn't take long for Tyler to feel comfortable skydiving again, and he started jumping on a regular basis. In 2017, after extensive training and planning, he became the first bilateral amputee to fly in a wingsuit. With skydiving and wingsuiting, like when I leave the plane, it feels identical to how it felt before my accident. And the suit, you're kind of laying on it. It feels like you're laying on this bed of air, like on a magic carpet almost. It was definitely a little weird. My right legs got quite a bit of weakness from paralysis in it. And so my right leg was kind of getting thrown around a bit, but I settled in.

20:01And once I settled in, it just like, it was incredible.

20:08As Tyler took up each sport, he regained confidence in his body, and he wondered how far he could push himself. More than anything, he wanted to snowboard again. Tyler loved carving through powder in the mountains, but as a double-leg amputee, he was unsure if he could ever regain the balance and control that the sport required.

20:33So then how did you start snowboarding again? Snowboarding's been my entire identity pretty much my whole life. So it was kind of a non-negotiable. I was going to figure out how to snowboard. But I also knew I had to be careful with it because like my first time putting prosthetics on, like my first time skydiving, all this stuff, that moment where you find out, like it's a make or break moment. It's, it's kind of incredible how it's like literally a single, like that moment, you'll know an answer. And maybe if you can't, like, I couldn't walk on my prosthetics perfectly. I knew the answer. At least I knew there was potential there.

21:09I was scared for that moment with snowboarding and I knew it was going to have to come at some point. I was going to have to find out. So I was really patient. It was the sport I was the most patient with because I guess it's like the most precious to me. You know, I didn't want, I wanted to make sure that I was going to be able to give it the best chance of success. And I knew it was going to take like time for my prosthetics to heal, feel a little better, deal with the pain, like get calluses built up and everything. I also was careful to set um you know really achievable goals off the bat with it because other sports I was like screw it I'm gonna fly wingsuits or whatever but with snowboarding I was like I'm gonna ride my snowboard 10 feet this season like that's it um I was like one of my best buddies Cody and uh had people walking me around with my hands over their shoulders and I couldn't barely walk and I I put my feet in the bindings I don't even think we strapped them up but I just with my forearm crutches I pushed got a little momentum and like slid 10 feet and uh I was like hell yeah proud of my accomplishments year one 10 feet done check everything else is a bonus but that summer I just like I was obsessing about snowboarding and again plan plan plan and like running down how I'm going to do it.

22:35Luckily, unlike skydiving and wingsuiting, there's a lot of people I can talk to and get beta from and ask about their experiences. Really lucky to have double amputees before me that have done it and have gone through the experience. With the world of social media, you can be pretty shameless us and just reach out and hey here's here's my situation here's what i'm trying to do and luckily most people were pretty good to get back to me and and help out and i worked so hard that summer and like almost opening day 2021 i guess it would have been me and my good good buddies growing up we snuck out opening day and we had a plan i remember the night before on his carpet in his living room where like i'm standing up and like all right you know like this could work and we're like putting pieces of rubber underneath my heel to try and wedge it so it felt a little more normal and come up with a plan like how we're gonna even ride the chairlift how how are we even gonna get me to the chairlift because i can barely walk at this point with the pain but we we got up there and um we had a plan to kind of go down you know falling leaf where you like hold each other's hands when you're learning to snowboard like and have the instructor giving you support i was like I'm going to do that with Spencer, my buddy.

23:55And so he kind of gets me up and I'm like, I don't want to find out. I didn't want to ride because I was about to find out maybe that I can't snowboard again. And I was too nervous. For two and a half years, I've been saying like, I'm going to snowboard. It's going to be possible. I'm going to, this is what I'm going to be able to do. Making all these claims. And then like, I'm about to find out here in one second. If I turn this board, I'm going to find out if those are even possible. And I was like super scary, but he kind of just gave me shit. He's like, dude, get over it, you know, point the damn board down hill.

24:36Tyler did as he was told and took off down the slope. It was exhilarating, even if he only made it about 30 feet before the pain took over. But in that moment, the joy of being able to ride was far greater than any discomfort. Over the subsequent months, he continued to set small, achievable goals to manage the pain, increase his endurance, and build back his skills.

25:04The first time you snowboarded was like 2020, but then you made the Olympic team pretty quickly after. there yeah i like the skills were there but it was just trying to figure out the pain and like pain management and how how to be able to ride more than two or three runs in a day or like stop seven times on every run so i started going to camps and stuff and can of snowboard was really good to me like they saw the struggle but also like that there was potential there so they were accommodating and like all right well hey you can you can do three runs great let's just like really train hard on those three runs and like make sure that we're progressing and also the coaches i'm lucky they've worked with amputees and snowboarding for enough years that they had some good ideas and and ways that we could adapt and modify and and take different approaches and it was all just this like fluid thing and it was happening so fast too because the games were coming and yeah I just kind of went for it so like how soon did you know that you were gonna enter the Paralympics after the first time you just went 10 feet to be honest I wasn't super interested um I I think like a lot of you know kind of just like the common people in North America the world like the Paralympics are getting more and more televised prime time and they're they're getting the light that I think they deserve, but I didn't tune in much.

26:42It was hard to, because it was kind of buried on the internet somewhere. Maybe YouTube would have it, but yeah, there, there wasn't the access to it. But to me, the Paralympics felt like, uh, our participation ribbon. That was my vision of it. So I'm like, yeah, whatever Paralympics, eh, I just want to to go snowboard and ride powder again and whatever and then i watched the sochi and south korea pyeongchang and i was like oh damn yep these like i i didn't really know i didn't know what i was in for and like i watched the racing i'm like okay like you're like this is legit these guys yeah yeah the you know it's coming down to a hundredth of a second and it's gnarly and it's fast and and these guys are good and I'm not that good.

27:31And so that was kind of where it like, it took some time to come around to like, okay, yeah, this is competing for your country on a national level with like national support and competing for gold medals. And it, it finally was like, okay, let's, let's give this a try. And yeah, when, when that kind of shift happened and it was actually, uh, I was riding with a friend of mine and he's like, he's like, dude, have you talked to the, Paralympic team? And I was like, well, I sent an email just like inquiring some information. And it's like, yeah, I don't know, whatever, not really my thing. And then he called one of the coaches and was like, yo, so you should go snowboarding with this guy.

28:12And then they invited me out to a camp and it just like took off from there. It was, it's like, there's a year and a half till the game. So if you want to do this, let's go. You didn't just like do it. You won gold yeah how did it feel to win gold yeah gold was incredible i it was fun because there's just no pressure like i was still just kind of a no one out of nowhere and um i was honestly i would just be laughing to myself and every time i made finals because i won i think five world cups that season before so all the world cup oh i lost one world cup that season so there's six i won five of them then I won world champs like three weeks before because world championships was postponed a year because of COVID so we went world cups world championships and paralympics all in one year which is crazy however for me it was great because like it's trading I'm brand new yeah like it's great opportunities and I so I was kind of building this momentum and I every time I was in the final start gate I'd just be laughing like what am I doing here which was awesome because then I just, I kind of went snowboarding and didn't care because it kind of blew my mind that I was even there.

29:22I didn't, I didn't know if I'd ever be there. And yeah, that, that momentum, I was able to take all the way to winning gold. So, you know, how was it winning gold? You ask, it's like, it was just, um, I couldn't ever imagine that level of accomplishment. I just wasn't even a consideration. So yeah, I don't know if it's still sunk in years later. Like I did it. I did it and I don't know how and it's just the wildest.

29:59You can follow Tyler on Instagram at tyturner14. That's T-Y-T-U-R-N-E-R 1-4. You can also find them at tyturner.ca. Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Piers-Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producer is Jenny Barber. Our executive producers are Paolo Motula and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow the show, take time to rate it, and write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.