Mike Durnell has lived in pain much of the time since he lost his arm and leg in a motorcycle accident. But he does his best to stay upbeat.

“Just because you lost limbs, you didn’t lose your life --there’s life in you and you’ve got to appreciate it,” said Durnell, 47, who lives in Carlsbad.

Durnell, a 1989 graduate of Torrey Pines High School, was 25 years old, when an 83-year old woman crashed into him as he was motorcycling on a Saturday afternoon near UC Riverside, where he was a senior. The woman apparently had fallen asleep at the wheel when she ran head-on into him in his lane on a two lane highway. The estimated speed of impact was 110 mph.

He spent 10 days in a coma with a cracked skull and broken neck, although he had worn a helmet. His left arm was torn from his body at the shoulder and his left leg was crushed from his foot up and into his high thigh, among other injuries. Doctors didn’t think he’d make it.


About two years later in 1999, Durnell walked onto the stage at the commencement ceremonies at UC Riverside to receive his bachelor’s degree in business administration. He got a standing ovation.

“It took longer to get the degree because of surgeries and dealing with pain,” Durnell said. Every three-day weekend, when he didn’t have classes, he had a surgery. Since then he has had 67 surgeries and major procedures. He started to work on an MBA at San Diego State University, but he was in too much pain and had too many surgeries, to continue.

Now he goes around to local hospitals and talks to folks who have lost limbs to encourage them. “I think it helps them,” Durnell said. He recalled how a young woman who had lost both her arms and both her legs had visited him in the hospital. “She helped me,” Durnell said. “I figured if she can make it, I can make it.”

He tries to focus on the positive and says his faith in God helps. “People spend so much time crying about the things they don’t have and want, but we should spend more time being thankful for the things we have and the things we can do,” Durnell said.


Durnell, who was on the wrestling, soccer and tennis teams in high school, and was an advanced scuba diver, loves going to the beach and watching the waves.

He is working on getting a new wheelchair, which he needs to use to get around. His old manual wheelchair that he had for 21 years is rusted and bent and will not move forward without difficulty, so community members are trying to get him a new one through his GoFundMe page.

Mike’s right knee is so swollen and painful that he can’t propel himself more than a few feet and when someone tries to push the wheelchair, there is no footrest for his right leg.

Durnell has tried to keep walking, but since his leg amputation was so close to his hip, and he has no arm on the same side, his balance is off and at 6 ft. 4 ½ inches tall, it is nearly impossible for him to walk for more than 5-minutes at a time. And when he does fall, it usually means more surgeries. He broke an ankle, but didn’t realize how serious it was because he is used to so much constant pain.


“When I’m not in pain, I smile a lot,” Durnell said.

“I don’t know how he puts up with it all,” said his mother Doreen Durnell Rings. ”But he is thankful to be alive and he is an inspiration to the rest of us.”

He has received thousands of letters from people who have heard his story and they say that he inspires them.

“Even though you can tell from his face that Michael is suffering from pain, he doesn’t complain,” said a friend, Sally Chung. “He gives me courage.”


To contribute to his wheelchair, visit https://www.gofundme.com/can-you-please-help-mike