An Incredible Journey
- Four best friends take a cross-country odyssey to immerse themselves in adaptive sports. Their cameras focused on everything from rehabilitation patients to Paralympic legends competing in everything from adaptive skiing to swimming to adaptive soccer. The inspiring journey taught them that sports can bring together people of all abilities.
- Zachary Bastian is an avid surfer who grew up catching waves in Rhode Island. It made him feel closer to his father who he lost at age 14. (His father had pushed him to get up on a surfboard when he was 6.) One day, he and his friend got on a dirt bike chasing adventure after a bonfire and they hit a car in a tragic accident. He didn’t know right away that he wasn’t going to walk again, but that’s what happened.
- Despite being paralyzed, Zack decided he was going to surf again, and he did. This sparked an even bigger mission with Zack and his friends driving across the country looking for adaptive sports athletes, which are competitive or recreational sports for people with disabilities. They interacted with athletes from coast to coast who never let their disabilities get in the way of their dreams.
Through their journey, they learned that sports can be the great equalizer, unifying people of all abilities across a level playing field.
Read MoreZack’s Story
Zack, an avid surfer, grew up catching waves in Rhode Island. It made him feel closer to his father who he lost at age 14. (His father had pushed him to get up on a surfboard when he was 6.) One day, he and his friend Timmy got on a dirt bike chasing adventure after a bonfire and they hit a car in a tragic accident. Zack didn’t know right away that he wasn’t going to walk again. Upon waking up in the hospital, he asked his mother if he would be healed by the time his football camp started two months later, and she said, “Zack, why don’t we just take it one day at a time.”Related: SurvivorNetTV Presents: Resilient Learning to Overcome
“The doctors never said, ‘You’re paralyzed, you’re never going to walk again,” Zack says, explaining that the doctors couldn’t tell at first because there was so much swelling. His doctor said that if the swelling didn’t go down in six months to a year, that he would probably have the injury forever.
“As I got closer and closer to six months, I realized that I was probably going to be in a chair for the rest of my life.”
Zack goes back to the site of the crash with his friend Charlotte and he takes in the surroundings. She half-gently tells him that he was kind of “a self-destructive asshole” back then while talking about the accident, and Zack doesn’t fight her on that statement. A motorcyclist whizzes by, and he says. “Is that serendipity?”
Finding the Light
From a sailboat, Zack admits that it was hard to accept his disability and questioned the future and what he would be able to, but says that eventually he realized that “some of the coolest, most interesting people I know are in chairs.”
After finding inspiration from magazine photos of quadriplegic pro-surfer Jesse Billauer, who was surfing on his stomach, he decided that that was what he intended to do and if Jesse could do it, there’s no reason why he couldn’t. Zack decided to go live in Southern California, deal poker at casinos, and just be a “surf bum.”
After missing family and friends back east, Zack returned home, but he yearned for more, and his next mission would be even more incredible. Zack and his friends decided to film Zack’s triumphant return to the surfboard to help motivate other people in rehabilitation of what they could achieve.
“I knew that I wanted to give something back to the rehab process.” And that is exactly what he did.
On a Mission
Zack and his friends wanted to know why there wasn’t more coverage of what people could do with disabilities in sports. They wanted to know why the Paralympics weren’t featured on mainstream TV. They wanted to be a part of a revolution, while fueling that revolution.
They put out an open call to hear from people with disabilities across the country with a goal of meeting up with everyone from rehabilitation patients to Paralympic legends pursuing adaptive sports. They met courageous adaptive skiers, hockey players, track athletes, swimmers, mountain-climbers and soccer players proving that sports can bring together people of all abilities.
The result had a snowball effect as Zack and his pals met more and more people who inspired and allowed him to join the challenge on their cross-country summer odyssey. The result was a mesmerizing journey that enriched their lives, and the lives of others, forever.
“This is the story of the people we met on the most incredible journey of our lives.”
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.
