My life took a real twist during the early morning hours of March 7, 1996 on a snow-covered, partially-marked trail in the Sand Dunes State Forest west of Zimmerman, Minnesota.

My friend Jim (not his real name) and I had been out late in the evening and had a few drinks with some of the guys. We fired up our snowmobiles and raced on long stretches of farm fields for awhile. Later, Jim and I traded machines and rode through some wooded sections. I was on his machine as I unknowingly headed toward a fork in the trail of the state forest.

I was in the lead and am not sure exactly what happened. I never made the fork in the trail. I'm told that when I plowed straight ahead instead of forking right or left, my head made contact with an eight inch limb on a twisted looking oak tree. Upon impact, I was knocked off of my sled, remained conscious, but lay flat on my back. I couldn't move my legs. We decided Jim should go seek help. I guess he was gone for about a half hour then returned, having not yet figured out how to get out of the forest. He tried to seek help a second time and was unsuccessful again. There were so many trail intersections that as Jim made a third attempt, he was worried about whether he would be able to lead rescuers back to me if he ever did find his way out. He doubled back a few times hoping the wind was just knocked out of me and that I'd be able to ride again. (At some point I was only semiconscious.) When he saw that wasn't going to happen, he decided to press on until he found a road. Finally about 6:30 a.m., he found a road and then a house where he called my wife, who called 911. He later told others, "It was a night I will never forget!"

My wife had been worried sick and was just relieved to hear anything, good or bad. She told me it was pretty tough to think of me laying out there hurting on the snow somewhere in the woods.

It took the rescue team about two hours to get me out of the woods. They were pretty worried about jarring me during transport. The DNR brought in a large tracked vehicle and brought me out to a road where a helicopter picked me up and flew me to North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale.

The medical staff's first concern was hypothermia; my body temperature was 81 degrees. Medical personnel were still warming me up at 10:30 a.m., an estimated six hours after the accident. Helicopter personnel later told us that it is very rare to not have permanent damage or death when the body temperature is below 85 degrees. By noon a scan was taken of my body and it was learned that I had a broken collar bone, a broken arm and two broken vertebrae, causing paralysis from the chest down. The doctor then told my family that in his experience, this type of damage is irreversible, and that they should plan on the paralysis being permanent.

I spent 58 days in the hospital and had back and heart surgery after x-rays showed possible aorta damage. I am thankful that I had a helmet on, otherwise I'd probably be dead. My accident caused so much mental and physical pain both for me and for my friends and family. My accident pulled memories to the surface of my brother's death eleven years ago following a snowmobile accident in Alaska. I think this was tough on my parents.

After an accident like this, it's impossible to not think back and wonder whether all of this pain could have been prevented. I don't do that very much anymore, but at first I sure did.

I don't think I was going exceptionally fast on the snowmobile, but am not sure how fast and I can't recall anything about how the accident happened. This much I do know; I had been drinking that evening and I believe it was a factor in the accident. My advice is, don't use alcohol when snowmobiling. Your entire life can change in a split second. My accident has been hard on my whole family. My wife Lisa, a third grade teacher, was pregnant at the time of the accident and our little girl Emily was only four years old. Fortunately, our home was small but fairly accessible and all on one level. We had been planning to build a new home so we now added features for accessibility. Shortly after I came home from the hospital, our wonderful community and friends organized a big benefit which helped us pay for accessible adaptations for our truck and our new home. I can't thank all of those people enough for all of their love and support.

I'm 35 years old, a housing contractor by trade and I run my business from my home. It would be hard to describe the amount of adjustment a paraplegic has to make. Every part of my life is affected. Each day there are small or big challenges that are faced because of the condition of my body. These challenges and changes not only affect me but the lives of my wife, daughter and son.

I'm working on conditioning my body and I have a lot of hope; that is, I'm not accepting this. I still have hope that I'm going to walk again.

Editors note: Special thanks to Dave Gruhlke for sharing his story with the hope that it will save others from unnecessary pain.