Lori Griffith

Special to The Courier Newsweekly

"The good Lord was like, 'I’m going to break quite a few things up, but spare you. I’m going to smack you around and give you a good wake-up call.' "

World-ranked athlete Damien Leroy, of Jupiter, grew up in Vail, Colorado, traveling the world with his ski-racing family. At 19, an Olympic downhill race contender, he injured his knee and moved to Naples, Florida, for rehabilitation.

As with life, when one door closes, another opens.

While walking on the beach one day he saw someone kitesurfing. Fascinated, and in typical Leroy fashion, he set out to learn everything he could about this new sport. Kitesurfing became his passion and when well enough, he returned to Mount Hood, Oregon, to train, but set aside his afternoons for kitesurfing in the Gorge.

'I cut racing cold turkey'



“I was trying to come back but never felt the knee was quite right and ski racing was kind of a dark world so I made the switch. I cut racing cold turkey and took on kitesurfing full-tilt,” said Leroy, 35.

As with everything he sets his mind to, the athlete quickly attained world recognition for his kitesurfing abilities and has subsequently been sponsored by such global megacompanies as GoPro, Cabrinha, Lululemon, Runa, SumBum, Lynch, NP Surf and Lift Foils.

Relocating to Florida opened the door to new challenges, something Leroy tends to gravitate toward. When not kitesurfing, he would be diving, surfing, stand-up paddleboarding, spearfishing and paragliding, a complete new world from the mountain life he previous led. Having his pilot's license from a young age, he learned to paraglide with his dad 10 to 12 years earlier but had stopped flying until a few years ago, when he and his friend Harry Andrews got engines and wings.

Paragliding is an inflated canopy over your head that is steered with toggles on both sides. According to Leroy, it is super-safe and very stable and he believes Florida to be one of the safest spots to paraglide in the world because of the steady sea breeze versus the often unstable air and rising air pockets inland. The coast has a consistent breeze that can be relatively easy to predict.

July 11, 2016

Nothing could have prepared Leroy for what happened on the afternoon of July 11, 2016.

Having just returned from traveling and filming an upcoming Hollywood movie ("Baywatch"), Leroy was at the beach with his good friend Jacob Olivier, who was preparing for his first powered paragliding flight. Olivier had been flying for more than a year and according to Leroy is super-talented at everything he tries.

“It was a perfect afternoon with light winds and a great day for him to get started," recalls Leroy. "He had his first flight that day and I kind of guided him through it and he had an amazing flight. It was the greatest day flying of his life. When he came down, he was like 'Damien, you should go for a flight now,' and I was actually just going to pack it up and go home but I said OK. I went up and wasn’t doing anything special. It was just a normal day. I truly treat and respect paragliding like an airplane. Landing is mandatory and taking off is optional. Realistically, it is your life and death when you’re up there.”

As he came out of a turn, the unthinkable happened and his wing stalled. He recalls the engine swinging one way and he the other. He was being spun rapidly so many times, which left him unable to grab the outside lines and manually steer the canopy. When that happens, the flyer is at the mercy of wherever the wing takes him.

The crash

In his own words Leroy recalls:

“At the time I was going out over the ocean so I know, out of instinct, I want to make sure all my clips are undone and I’ll jump out 2 to 3 feet from the water without tangling with my lines. That was my theory. I unclipped everything a couple hundred feet up just to be ahead of whatever was coming. Then the wind changed and came onshore and I was now heading toward the beach. I saw a lot of people and was like. 'Oh man, I don’t want to hit any people,' so I stayed with it. My options were limited. … The Karen Marcus Preserve has been cleared to make a parking lot and now was just a massive mound of jagged trees and brush. I didn’t see a good outcome if I went into that pile of daggers. In my head I had this feeling that there were some bushes coming up so I climbed out, hung as low as I could from my machine (about 150 feet up) and jumped like I would if I were jumping off a cliff skiing. You kind of butt check. That’s a safe way to not break your legs if you land directly on them.

"I remember hitting the bushes. It was in crazy slow motion. When I saw the video I was thinking it looked to all happen so fast, but I remember having so much time. 'OK, unclip, undo your lines … try to unspin.' Then the moment came when I knew I was crashing and I couldn’t go into the water, which I would have loved, so I made the decision and I climbed out. I was going about 35 mph and I knew I had to jump. I timed it perfectly and nailed the bushes exactly where I wanted to hit. If I waited any longer the outcome would have been totally different.

"I remember regaining consciousness about 20 seconds after going through the bushes and looking up to see Jacob running toward me. We hung tight together and stayed positive, talking until EMS got there. The Fire Department and EMS were on it crazy-fast and had me loaded into the helicopter and miracle after miracle occurred, starting with Dr. Elkhechen at St. Mary’s Trauma Center. He did my surgery in the morning and everyone at St. Mary’s was amazing. They did an incredible job.”

Saving his life

Leroy suffered a broken femur, ruptured artery in his leg, broken pelvis, sacrum, back, tailbone, punctured lung, broken ribs and was bruised from head to toe. He attributes the incredible first responders and staff at St. Mary’s Trauma Center, in West Palm Beach, for saving his life.

“They have a really good staff and totally care for their patients. They gave me the confidence to know that I was going to get better and it really was such a beautiful thing.”

Once again the world champion athlete was back in rehab mode, learning to walk again and overcome the tremendous pain he was enduring. Among those by his side daily was his young friend and fellow kitesurfer, Jacob Olivier.

“This kid has a huge future in kiteboarding and I felt bad because of how traumatic the experience was for him as well. “After having the greatest flight of his life and then a few minutes later having the biggest wakeup call to see his friend crash, he was there every day to get me back. Jacob was in training for kiting and we started going to the gym every day, sometimes twice a day. I’m helping him push his boundaries with kiteboarding and he sure helped me learn how to actually walk again.”

Rehabilitation began

Rehabilitation began with walking in the pool for an hour and leg lifts for an hour. Leroy recalls going to Gold's Gym with a towel “ready to sweat on the stationary bicycle only to realize I couldn’t pedal. I’d literally burn like 100 calories an hour and I’m sure people were staring at me because I had the slowest pedal ever.” '

He highly recommends the Juvent machine, designed by NASA to help with bone growth, and a Biomat he received from Lululemon as priority equipment when rehabbing injuries.

Propelling him forward daily were reminders of people he met while hospitalized, like a young Italian athlete named Massimo Spagnoli whose leg was amputated.

“If I think I have it tough, I just look to this athlete who is super-talented and endured over 50 surgeries. He had one leg and was charging. This kid totally inspires me.”

Leroy said he feels he has been granted a second chance in life and that his accident has given his life a renewed purpose, noting, “I thought being a world champion and doing really awesome things on a kite was such an important factor in life and I feel like it’s important because I enjoy it, but what’s really important is being a good person. And having faith. If you’re struggling with yourself, you need something to ground you. There is no question I was looked after in this accident and given a second chance, so I’m going to take full advantage of it."

Going forward — with direction

Going forward, Leroy is leaning toward motivational speaking and notes, "I don’t want to be just a normal motivational speaker. I feel our youth need direction and I say that in a positive way. We have all this amazing social media and it can accomplish so much, but the kids are a little lost.

"There is no guidance and the biggest one for me is that you have to show kids that it still takes hard work to make it happen. You can’t just sit around all day with all your games. It’s not gonna happen. You’ve got to go out and make it happen.

"Whatever you want to do, you can do for sure, but you’ve still got to work for it. Just because you’re good looking doesn’t mean you’re going to be a good model. You’ve go to go out and make yourself a model. I think people are quite lazy right now. In my opinion, I want to give the youth motivation for the future. You don’t have to be somebody special to make a difference and that was my big one. I always thought you had to be a world champion. I accomplished that, but I can make a difference even if I wasn’t. It took my accident to realize that.

"Also, if you’re not doing something you love, then you’re just fighting life. If you’re happy and you care and show love, I promise you, it comes right back. You have to believe in it. You have to give because you want to give and give from the heart," he said.

"Miracles happen!"