COLUMBUS – On the morning of May 12, Allen Frye was making good time.
The 48-year-old sliced through the crisp Saturday morning air on his black Specialized Venge aero frame road bike, tracing the Central Ohio hills on the Kokosing Gap Trail. He had planned an 82-mile training ride that day, which should have taken him less than four hours if he kept his desired 20.5 mile-per-hour pace.
As he tore through Knox County’s shaded valleys, back hunched and legs churning, he felt good. He found himself consistently hitting 23 miles per hour for the first 90 minutes on the trail, a welcome sign considering that the Ironman 70.3 Ohio race was just over two months away.
Then, for an unexplainable reason, he lost his edge. He zoned out, perhaps complacent because of the ideal conditions – clear skies, no storms the night before – and traveling at such a blistering clip, he fell victim to chance.
When he saw the fallen tree ahead of him, stretched out across the trail, it was too late. He was 10 feet away.
He remembers his front tire hitting the tree, hearing the fork of his carbon bike snap like a twig, and after that, little else.
When he woke up, he was lying on his back on the trail, bike tangled in his legs, helmet still on. He screamed for help, but to no avail.
His first instinct was to reach for his phone, which was to the right of his body. He reached for it with his left arm, stretching across his body to call his wife.
Except when he looked up, he wasn’t moving at all. He couldn’t.
***
Around the same time Frye began his trail ride that Saturday, his wife, Sunshine, left the house to run in Gambier.
Like her husband, Sunshine is an avid runner. The two rise at 4:15 every morning in their Clintonville home to make a pot of coffee, relax, and prepare mentally before attending to their daily training regimen.
Allen competes in triathlons across the country, with the ultimate goal of qualifying for the Ironman World Championships – if not this year in Hawaii, then next year in France. Sunshine has ran in everything from one-mile races to ultramarathons, but now trains specifically for the 5k. She’s training to qualify for the U.S. Track & Field Master’s Nationals.
On May 12, when she set out to do hill repeats on a “nasty” slope on Kenyon College’s campus, something didn’t feel right.
She made it up the hill four times before deciding to call things off. She became overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of move-out day on campus and figured she would just finish her workout with a long run through the area.
But as she left campus, the uneasiness within her only got worse.
She cut over the Route 229 bridge, heading towards Kokosing Gap Trail, when she heard “what sounded like farm equipment.”
“But as I got closer, I realized it was a helicopter,” she said. “And I just started having a sinking feeling.”
She started sprinting, not fully sure why, towards the area beyond the trees where the lifelight helicopter had dropped down.
At that point, Allen was trying to make peace with his situation. But things were grave.
“I think I just ruined my life,” he told the man who found him, Adam Cramer.
Cramer was running along the trail when he heard the screams. As he pulled around the straightaway, he saw Allen; vocal but motionless, sprawled out across the path.
Cramer called 911 with Allen’s phone and held a 20-minute conversation with him in order to keep him from going into shock.
By the time the helicopter arrived, Allen had told Cramer all about his triathlon training and his nutritional regimen. But as much as Cramer tried to keep Allen’s mind off of the situation, reality became inevitable.
“He said, ‘I may never walk again,’” Cramer remembers. “And I said, ‘You might be surprised. With the medical advancements we have these days, you never know what’s going to happen.’”
***
Laying back on his white bed at Ohio State University’s Dodd Rehabilitation Hospital, Allen suddenly lit up.
“There I am!” he said, motioning toward the TV on the wall across from his bed with his left hand, the one he can best move.
He had been bragging to the nurses all day that he was going to be on the news that night at 6:15, a special report. He broke the conversation to stare intently at the screen, as shots of him working his way down the hospital hallway one step at a time appeared in sequence.
Six weeks after his accident, Allen is well ahead of where most thought he would be.
He can walk with assistance. He’s gone up 10 steps and back down 10 more. He can transfer himself from his bed to his wheelchair. He can feed himself most meals, depending on the food. He can also brush his teeth now. He’s still working on putting his socks on.
Although Allen blacked out after he hit the tree, he’s been able to piece together details to gain an understanding of what happened to him on May 12.
He believes that when he hit the tree, he began to somersault in the air. The skid marks on the back of his helmet show that he likely landed head-first. And once he hit the ground, his neck stuck and the rest of his body rolled over, causing it to hyperextend.
After being rushed to the hospital, an MRI revealed that he had broken his C3, C4, C5 and C6 vertebrae in his neck. There was serious spinal damage and he would need emergency surgery.
Sunshine, who had unknowingly seen his lifelight helicopter take off that morning, returned to her car to find numerous missed calls. Her uneasy feelings confirmed, she rushed down to the hospital in a panicked daze.
On Tuesday, the TV monitors showed him walking up steps and doing what doctors had called ‘amazing’ given how little time had passed since his accident. Surgeons have told Allen he has made more progress in his first five weeks of therapy than most make in three to six months.
But the 10-TV news special wasn’t as much about his progress as it was one of the main reasons for it.
After he had an MRI done back on May 12, and before he would need emergency surgery to repair his spine, Allen and Sunshine were presented with a proposal.
In the midst of a crisis, a neurosurgeon asked Allen if he would like to take part in an experimental drug use study.
“I don’t know if I would have been so brave, but Allen was all for it,” said Sunshine, who had to sign off on the test drug because her husband couldn’t. “He’s like, ‘Yeah, whatever. It sounds great. The side effects sound minimal, so whatever’s going to help, let’s do it.’”
The drug is called glyburide, and was recommended by Dr. H Francis Farhadi because he believed that even though it had never been used in this way before (it is typically used to treat type 2 diabetes), it could vastly improve Allen’s recovery process.
Even after spinal surgery, microbleeds and swelling often occur along the spine, causing further damage to the spinal cord. Farhadi believed this drug would stop that from occurring.
He was right.
To this date, Allen is the first and only person in the world to receive glyburide for that purpose. In a way, it was the perfect fit; the main side effect was the lowering of blood sugar levels, but Allen’s health stemmed that. The drug also needs to be administered quickly, just a few hours after impact, and they were able to do that as well.
“It actually confirmed a lot of work that’s been done the past two or three decades by numerous researchers and organizations,” Farhadi said, noting the profound significance of Allen’s successful test. “It’s great to see.”
Another patient care assistant walks by.
“Hey, 6:15 tonight, baby,” Allen quips. “They’re already teasing it.”
What Allen knows, though (and most people don’t), is that the wonder drug was only half the story. He’ll humbly let slide the fact that had it not been for the last four years of his life, “this would be completely different.”
***
Long before Allen became Allen – an elite athlete with a machine-like approach to training – he was the kid on his seventh grade football team who “worked his ass off at practice every day but got to play a total of two minutes the entire season.”
Allen graduated from Mount Vernon High School in 1987 and would stay in Knox County, eventually becoming the mayor of Danville for four years near the turn of the century.
While he’s bounced around between odd jobs for most of his life, he has always been a trucker. Eventually, when life hit him with divorce and personal hardship, that lifestyle became his worst enemy.
He began to fall into the same trap as thousands of other truckers across the country, one where greasy fast food overrides discipline. When life started rolling downhill, he couldn’t stop it.
In his darkest hour, he weighed 300 pounds and smoked two packs of cigarettes a day.
He would lose the weight, then gain it back again, then repeat the cycle. This went on until four years ago, when he was helping his sister’s family rehab an old house in Western New York, around the same time he had received a Facebook message from a woman named Sunshine.
“I decided once and for all, it was time to get that done, get that off,” said Allen, who was 250 pounds at the time.
Sunshine, who admittedly once struggled with weight issues as well, was competing in marathons at the time. Once Allen moved in with her in Columbus, Sunshine said he started to take his training seriously. He became competitive about it. He hasn’t looked back since.
“It’s like a switch went off in him and it was game-on from there on,” she said. “And really, that’s the way we live life.”
In the four years since, the two have become increasingly committed to their training. Allen went from huffing and puffing at an 11-minute mile pace to conquering the Alaska Extreme Triathlon in July 2017, one day before he and Sunshine would get married in front of the scenic terrain.
They go to sleep at 8:15 and wake up at 4:15 every morning, refusing to consume added sweeteners or alcohol and only eating meat in moderation. On a ‘tough week,’ Allen is clocking 20-22 hours of training; Sunshine, 41, runs 40 miles per week.
Allen, now a lean 175 pounds, is still a trucker.
Things are different now, though.
He takes time after his morning workout to meal prep a box full of fruits and vegetables for lunch. Other truckers would poke fun at how big his lunch box is, while Allen would try to explain to them the benefits of proper nutrition.
The two have also begun to mentor those in their community, sending out a weekly email newsletter with dietary tips and motivation. Allen has started a Facebook page called ‘America’s Fittest Trucker’ so others can learn from his fitness odyssey.
But now, he uses the Facebook page for another reason – to track his progress in Dodd.
He posts daily videos showing himself conquering therapy obstacles, while also explaining the reality of dealing with a spinal cord injury.
A common misconception, Allen says, is that walking is the hardest part, the final step. In reality, it’s the other way around.
“Friends and family were asking that a lot, ‘Have they said if he’ll be able to walk again?’ And as a spinal injury patient, it’s not just about the walking,” he said. “Walking is great, don’t get me wrong. The first time I walked after my accident it was pretty freakin’ awesome. But when I was able to hold a fork and a special device and feed myself for the first time, that was pretty special. When I can brush my teeth… All of these things are the ins and outs of spinal cord injuries that most people don’t get, they don’t understand.”
The most common misconception, though, is that all spinal cord injuries are the same.
In reality, Allen says that a million different factors can determine the outcome of a patient. He thinks about it all the time; had he hit the brakes a second earlier, or had he been going a half mile an hour faster, or had his shoes not been strapped into his pedals – who knows where he might be, for better or worse.
If anything, Allen understands now more than ever that life is a game of inches. And when it came to his quick recovery, it has understandably been a game of pounds.
“As far as my activity level, I thank God for my fitness,” he said. “Because the fitness that I had is what’s allowing me to have my fitness now. Again, if I was that 300-pound guy again, and I had the same accident, this would be completely different.”
Today, Allen attacks his daily, three-hour therapy sessions with the same intensity that he did his training. He views it as a continuation of his triathlon preparation.
Despite suffering a setback that most might consider to be career-ending, Allen doesn’t blink when asked about his future as a triathlete.
“My goal is still the same, is to win the Ironman World Championships for my age group. It’s just going to take me a little longer than I was planning on doing it,” he said, wearing his Team Hastings Elite biking jersey in his hospital bed, fresh off of another grueling rehab session.
“But yeah, I’m fully believing in myself that I’ll be back 100 percent.”
***
“Please help me get into my chair,” Allen says into his phone, which sends a message to a nurse down the hall.
“I love talk-to-text by the way,” he says, smiling. He can’t move his right hand well yet – the right side of his body is well behind his left – and even though he is gaining ability in his left hand, this is much easier.
It’s a love/hate relationship between Allen and the nurses at the hospital – well, mostly love, but sometimes they poke in his doorway vengefully in the morning and say, ‘OK, I went to the gym yesterday because I thought of you.’
Yes, Allen’s ultimate goal is to get back on the trail as soon as possible. But what brings him the most satisfaction is the impact he’s had on those around him, even in his first six weeks at Dodd.
He spoke of a younger man down the hall who also experienced a chronic injury, and how he fell into a deep depression, not uncommon for those under similar circumstances.
Upon request, nurses wheeled Allen down to his room and let him have a word with the man. Within a half hour, everything changed.
“He was ready to charge PT. He was ready to get after it,” Allen says now, smiling with genuine satisfaction. “I’m not saying I’ve totally changed his life forever, but I was able to help pull him out of that depression and see that there’s hope out there.”
Allen’s spirit is contagious. He holds himself and others accountable in therapy sessions, but also gives out plenty of fist-bumps. He preaches his ‘I Can’ gospel to all who will listen, and in the process, has turned a chronic impossibility into an opportunity.
“At this point, the accident was something I couldn’t control. That was just something life threw at me. Now I have a choice on how I can react to that,” Allen said. “I can either attack it and make the choices that are going to make me better, or I can make the choice to just give up. And number one, it’s not in me to give up, and number two, that’s not going to be beneficial to me.
“I just have to accept the things that I can’t control and affect the things I can control.”
Doctors will agree that for all that the test drug and prior fitness did to accelerate Allen’s recovery, his attitude has made just as big an impact.
Even before his accident, Allen said that he and his wife were planning on taking their weekly health newsletters further. They planned on getting into motivational speaking, a venture that will likely only be enhanced by Allen’s experience in recovery.
In many ways, though, Allen’s incident-turned-opportunity has already influenced those outside of Dodd.
Back on the morning of May 12, after the screams and before the lifelight, Cramer came to a realization. As he conversed with Allen, who lay tangled and motionless on the trail, minutes removed from peak athletic performance, the unforgiving reality of life set in.
If this can happen to someone like him, this can happen to anyone.
Cramer, a Mount Vernon native, says that the experience changed him.
He eats healthier and exercises more now. He also spends more time with his family, postponing work for coloring sessions with his children and reading to his kids a little longer before bed.
“It was eye-opening,” Cramer said, six weeks later.
***
Allen sits on the edge of his bed, following four intense thrusts to sit up, and cracks jokes with the two PCAs who intend to help him get into his wheelchair.
It’s almost time to get dinner, which he has proudly kept the same since he got to the hospital – four or five servings of vegetables, three servings of fruits and a little bit of protein.
“Did I tell you I can self-transfer now?” he asks the PCA. “Yeah, I’m not signed off on it but I can do it. It’s pretty cool.”
With three more thrusts, Allen is up from the bed and into his chair.
“Not too bad for somebody who couldn’t move one hand three weeks ago,” he says, laughing.
Sitting in his wheelchair, he appears to still be in pristine shape. He wears his jersey, sweatpants and Brooks running shoes, as if he is ready to begin training again right now.
Which, really, he is.
There has never been a ‘Why me?’ moment for Allen Frye in the midst of this crisis, the destruction of his body, his work of art.
Instead, he chose only to look forward. Easier said than done, but he’s done it.
Of all the people rooting for Allen, watching his progress through his Facebook page, his second-biggest fan (only to Sunshine) might be Cramer. They still keep in touch over social media, united by a morning that has changed their lives forever.
“I’m glad to see that he’s doing better, I saw some videos,” Cramer said. “I just hope he gets well and maybe someday we’ll take a run together.”
If life is a game of inches, then Allen is fighting for every one. Every step he takes, every stair he climbs gets him a little bit closer to his sanctum, being back in the field of competition.
While there’s no guarantee that he will ever be able to compete at such a high level again, that isn’t stopping Allen from chasing the opportunity.
“You know, it’s funny with him. If it were anyone else, I’m not sure. But with Allen, I am 100 percent certain that’s going to happen,” Sunshine said. “I have no doubt in my mind I’m going to be on an Ironman course cheering him on within the next year, two years, who knows – we don’t know, but I know it will happen.”
In a few days, he will be off to the Cleveland VA Medical Center to continue his therapy. After that, he’ll be back home, slowly getting back to his rigid but familiar routine.
Adjusting himself in the chair and flipping down the brake, Allen turns and wheels himself out into the main hallway. Much like everything he does, everything he used to do, and everything he plans to do, he goes fast.