Anthony Picchione dreamed of becoming a professional motocross racer, just like his dad. But a spinal cord injury he suffered during an accident in November 2021 left him paralyzed as a teenager.
"I really honestly didn't think I was going to make it. I vividly remember laying on the ground. I was fearful for my life obviously. I can't move my legs, can't sit up, and my lung is filling up with blood too," Picchione, now 21, tells Inside Edition Digital.
He remembers the accident vividly. It occurred during the first race of the morning.
"They dropped the gate and it was 180 degree left turn, I didn't get a very good start and there was a long straightaway," Picchione says. "The first race in the morning, they always rip up the dirt really deep. And I didn't account for how deep and sticky the dirt was going to be, and I had too much of my weight over the front end of the bike when I slowed down going into the second corner and the bike stopped and I flipped over the handlebars."
Picchione realized his fate in the ICU of a Florida hospital. He was paralyzed from the chest down. "Which is a hard thing to hear at any age, but especially 19 years old when you think you have your whole life ahead of you," he says. He was then flown to Gaylord Specialty Healthcare in Wallingford, Connecticut, for more specialized care.
"When he was admitted to Gaylord, he couldn't move his legs. He couldn't feel his legs. He was paraplegic at a T-5 level," says Dr. David Rosenblum, medical director of the Milne Institute at Gaylord Hospital.
At first, it was hard for Picchione to find motivation during his recovery. "It was really hard just to get out of bed and want to do anything. But I think I shortly realized that no one was going to do it for me and if I wanted to go home and see my family and try to get back to some sort of normalcy, I was going to have to get up and do it for myself."
Slowly, he made progress.
"It starts with working on bed mobility, starting to work towards transfers, wheelchair management, wheelchair skills, and working on things that many of us take for granted. Washing, bathing, feeding, grooming, dressing, hygiene, all of that at first is difficult. It's overwhelming," Rosenblum explains.
A few months later, Picchione was discharged. Since then, he's been keeping up with his peers. He's gone on a friend's boat and hangs out with friends. Next month, he's going to a casino.
"There's nothing that I want to do that I can't," he says.
That includes driving. Picchione drives a Mercedes Sprinter van with a lift and uses hand controls to either accelerate or brake. "That thing was a lifesaver because it was hard at 20 years old or 19 years old, not being able to drive yourself, " he says.
Picchione's also part of a program called Motodemption that has helped him motocross again. "That really meant a lot to me just to show myself that I could get back to doing something that I loved," he says. "Even if it wasn't at the same capacity, it still gave me the same feeling."
Most recently Picchione competed in an adaptive Tough Mudder 5K, which he felt was one the "toughest things that I've had to do."
Picchione hopes to compete in the 5K again to see if he can beat his own time. He also has a job, working at HVAC management group in Ridgefield, Connecticut. Getting through perhaps the worst moment in his life took some soul searching along with willpower and determination, he says.
"I think finding your purpose just as a human being really can help push you through an injury like that because I feel like also with an injury like this, you feel like you lose your purpose," he says.
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