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“We live in a pretty well connected world, so I hear about that a lot,” he says. Many of those posts and comments were from people who have suffered serious accidents themselves, and who tell him that they take something positive out of his recovery. “That’s pretty motivating for me, too,” McMorris says. “It makes me want to push through and be the best I can be to help people through tough times or whatever. That’s a pretty cool feeling.”

Drawing on that also helped in those moments when the recovery didn’t feel like it was moving fast enough. When McMorris first starting riding again at the start of this season, it “just wasn’t that great,” he says. He points to his left arm: “This bone shattered and it takes a really long time to heal.” Fair enough. But by October, at an event in Switzerland, “it felt like I had never left, so that was cool.”

It was then, just four months ago, that McMorris says he first felt confident that he could compete at a high enough level to make the Pyeongchang team.

“I’m just glad to be doing this again,” he says. “Whatever the outcome, it’s a pretty good feeling to be able to snowboard again.”

You get the sense that McMorris is a little of two minds about the accident. He’s not totally forthcoming about what happened, and probably passed the point long ago where he got tired of recounting the grisly details.

“It sucks, but I’m trying to move on from that,” he said Tuesday. “And here I am.”

But he also knows that it’s part of his story now. He will always be the guy whose road to Pyeongchang went straight into a tree and detoured to an ER and an operating table and a hospital bed.

“It’s pretty motivating,” he says. “Knowing I was almost dead, and I get to be here again.”

• Email: sstinson@postmedia.com | Twitter: @scott_stinson