SAN CLEMENTE, Calif. (AP) When Beth Sanden crashed her bike after speeding over a wet, broken patch of asphalt 15 years ago, the elite endurance athlete was left paralyzed. She figured her competition days were over, along with her career as a personal trainer and triathlon coach.
Actually, they were just beginning.
Paralyzed from the rib cage down and told she’d never walk again, she was swimming a year later. Soon after, she was walking with a walker, then a cane. Then she was back to competing in triathlons, albeit not the way she did before.
Sanden mostly walks these days by swinging her braced, completely paralyzed left leg like a pendulum while leaning on her cane, then moving her still-weakened right leg ahead of her body.