2022 Cycle 3 New Athlete (East) | High Fives Foundation

Introducing: High Fives Cycle 3 2022 Empowerment Grant recipients

High Fives is very proud to introduce everyone to these new Athletes that we will be supporting through their recovery and onto whatever goals and adventures they can dream of.

Recovery and progression of one’s mind and body is a never-ending pursuit. These Athletes realize that setting goals and improving themselves is incredibly important. After one goal or adventure is complete, they know that that goal is possible and find ways to become better with the experience and skill created.

High Fives believes that these 20 new Athletes embody our values and will represent High Fives in amazing ways, and we cannot wait to see what they are able to accomplish.

Meet the Central | Grant Recipients HERE

Meet the West Coast | Grant Recipients HERE

Cycle 3 2022 Empowerment Grant Recipients

Ethan David Duzan | Life Changing
Wyoming, MI

Ethan was skiing at cabrerfae mountain. He was going down at high speed, when he went over a higher slope of snow at high speed and ran into a snow-making machine.

YOLO

$3,500 – Adaptive Equipment

Terry “Dave” Cummings | Amputee Below Knee
St. Louis, MO

In 2019, while on vacation in Colorado, Terry fell while skateboarding. He had just his bike up/down Berthoud Pass in Winter Park. The fall was Just a really awkward fall that destroyed his knee. He had 9 surgeries to repair it, but they weren’t working, so he chose to have an amputation.

Just keep pushing forward.

$4,400- Adaptive Equipment

Camryn Frazier | SCI C5
Cape Coral, FL

Camryn was injured when he took a fall off of his BMX bike when riding it at his local skatepark. He was going up a 6ft ramp to go down another 6ft ramp, as he was about to go down, a kid came out in front of him, and when trying to avoid him, he fell off from the top of the ramp and landed on his head breaking his C5 vertebrae and becoming paralyzed from the chest down.

Be happy no matter what because it can always be worse

$3,500-Adaptive Equipment

Mark Flynn | SCI T7
Orange Park, FL

Mark was skiing at Deer Valley in January of 2021. The area he was skiing looked to have good snow coverage, but it was just crust on a boulder. Mark hit the boulder and severed his spinal cord. It was a freak accident on a simple run. His son who was visiting home from university ended up saving his dad’s life.

“Don’t go to the grave with life unused.” Bobby Bowden

$3,200-Adaptive Equipment

Cody Baker | SCI T12
Greenfield, MA

Cody , was a very strong skilled motocross rider, and at a young age he was able to get enough points to get into the pro class. He was only 16, and this was a highlight for someone so young. He had worked very hard to get where he was. Cody decided to do a practice run on a track the week before his race, where he went off a jump, and did a face plant over the front of the bike. The bike folded him in half the wrong way, landing on his back. This has left him paralyzed from the belly button down.

YOLO

$3,200 – Adaptive Equipment

Paul Shaver | SCI L4
Huntington, WV

Paul was injured at a young age after experiencing a crash on a local mountain bike trail. After the injury, he didn’t think he would ever be able to participate in offroad biking/mountain biking until he discovered adaptive offroad handcycles. Within the last couple of years. After trialing a few of these handcycles on the trail, he quickly realized that I could get back outdoors and experience the joys of the sport once more.

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” – Maya Angelou

$5,000 – Adaptive Equipment

Gilbert Camacho | Double below-knee Amputee
Totowa, NJ

Gilbert was pulled off the side of the road fixing a flat tire when a drunk driver hit him and pinned him into his vehicle. He immediately lost both of his legs above the knee at the scene of the accident.

No matter how dark the night, morning always comes, and our journey begins anew.

$5,000 – Adaptive Equipment

Garrett Goodwin | SCI T7
Grand Rapids, MI

Garrett was injured practicing for a motocross race. He came up just short on a jump and the bike rotated forward and landed on him at the bottom of a hill.

It’s not what happens to you, it’s what you do about it!

$5,000 – Adaptive Equipment

Cody Fox | SCI T3
Plainfield, IN

Cody was racing dirt bikes at a national motocross track and flew over the bars upon landing off a 100′ jump. He Broke his T5, T6, T7 with the spinal cord injury at T6. He also broke 8 ribs on his left side, putting several punctures in his left lung. He also shattered his left scapula and left collarbone.

You can’t change the past.

$5,000 – Adaptive Equipment

Tara Shetterly | SCI T12
Norfolk, VI

When Tara was 16, she was paralyzed in a car accident. Coming out of a doctor’s appointment one morning, riding in the passenger seat of her Dad’s truck, they were T-boned at an intersection. The truck flipped and she had a lot of serious internal injuries. Some of my injuries were potentially fatal, such as a rupture of the thoracic aorta and collapsed lung.She also broke 7 bones in her neck and back, which caused a spinal cord injury at T11 and T12.

When you focus on what you lack, you lose what you have. When you focus on what you have, you gain what you lack.

$2,500 – Adaptive Equipment

John Heath | Amputee Below Knee
Cincinnati, OH

John was hit by a drunk driver which caused him to have 12 lower extremity reconstruction surgeries. The 13th was his amputation on May 21,2021

Tell your story, it could save someones life. Everyone has a story.

$1,000 – Adaptive Equipment

Stephen Peterson | Amputee Above Knee
Land O Lakes, FL

As a combat engineer in the army, on July first 2011 Stephen sustained his second ied explosion in Ghazni Afghanistan, which resulted in losing his right leg through the knee, broken hips, broken tailbone, as well as a tbi/severe ptsd

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

$3,000 – Adaptive Equipment

Andrew Carpenter | SCI T6
Columbia, SC

Andrew was in a car wreck when he was 10. He was riding with his family in the wintertime. While they were driving his dad hit black ice and spun out. The car spun out 180 degrees and slid across the lanes. hitting a light pole on the side of the car.

Life is short and it is here to be lived

$3,500 – Adaptive Equipment

Erin Saari | SCI C4
Newcastle ON, Canada

Erin was injured in a diving accident at a friend’s pool just over six years ago. After diving through an inner tube, her head hit the bottom of the pool, paralyzing her from the shoulders down, instantly. She remembers everything, trying to swim but unable to do anything but move her head back and forth- She eventually drowned, but was luckily saved and revived by her boyfriend (at the time) and was taken to hospital by ambulance.

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak. – Thomas Carlyle

$3,600 – Adaptive Equipment

Connor Hall | Amputation Below Knee
Camp Hill, PA

Connor was on the Penn State ski team and they were practicing for a race that weekend in Maryland. He was cruising down the race hill when he leaned too far in the back seat and launched himself upside down into the woods. He slid into the woods and crashed into a tree making contact with the middle of his back. This resulted in an incomplete spinal cord injury.

For those with a rugged spirit and a taste for adventure – Ezra Brooks

$5,000 – Adaptive Equipment

Ashley Beck | TBI
Norfolk, VA

Ashley has had several spine surgeries and another waiting to be scheduled. During the healing time of her last spine fusion, she was rear-ended at a full stop by someone on their cell phone. Because her neck had not yet healed, she didn’t have enough stability, forcing her head violently forward and back. This resulted in a TBI and increased PTSD symptoms.

Be as passionate as Joan of Arc and as fierce as Joan Crawford.

$2,500 – Adaptive Equipment

RJ Roggeveen | Life Changing
Halifax, NS, CAN

Rj experienced trauma to both legs causing instability, muscle weakness, loss of coordination, & nerve abnormalities

Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out

$2,500 – Adaptive Equipment

Eli Workman | SCI T3
Southfield, MI

On the last day of a winter training trip with the college ski team Eli was racing a teammate back to the lodge on the last run of the day. He caught an edge in a soft patch of snow and double ejected. He broke his collarbone, six ribs that punctured both of my lungs, and six vertebrae including a dislocation fracture that shifted the top third of my spine forward and down by a full vertebrae.

“You just gotta keep livin, man. L-I-V-I-N” – Dazed and Confused

$3,500 – Adaptive Equipment

Jennifer Ackers | SCI C5
Brant Beach, NJ

Jennifer was injured in a snowboarding accident in 2003. Another rider struck her from behind, and the resulting high-speed fall forced her neck and right shoulder in two different directions, ripping the roots of her C5 and C6 nerves from her spine and paralyzing several of the muscles in her upper arm and shoulder. In addition, her C7 nerve root was also stretched and she broke a vertebrae and her scapula.