Tyler Turner has always been a bit of a daredevil. He grew up skiing, snowboarding, and eventually became a skydiving instructor. After a 2015 accident resulted in the amputation of both legs, he rebuilt his life around the sports he loves. Today, he’s a three-time Para Snowboard Cross World Champion, a Paralympic gold medalist, and the first bilateral amputee to fly in a wingsuit.
Tyler Turner has always been a bit of a daredevil. He grew up skiing, snowboarding, and eventually became a skydiving instructor. After a 2015 accident resulted in the amputation of both legs, he rebuilt his life around the sports he loves. Today, he’s a three-time Para Snowboard Cross World Champion, a Paralympic gold medalist, and the first bilateral amputee to fly in a wingsuit.
Connect with Tyler:
Listen to:
Thank you to our sponsors:
Shelby Stanger:
Tyler Turner has always been a bit of a daredevil, an all around adventure athlete. He grew up skiing and snowboarding, and eventually made a career as a skydiving instructor. But in 2015, Tyler had an accident that resulted in the amputation of both of his legs. It was unclear if he'd ever be able to return to the sports he loved, especially snowboarding.
Tyler Turner:
I didn't want to ride, because I was about to find out maybe that I can't snowboard again, and then I'd only gone 30 feet. But in that 30 feet I went, yep, this is snowboarding. I was just giggling and screaming in pain, but screaming in joy, and it was just a really cool moment. Then we pulled over to the side of the run and I took the prosthetics off, and then that season I just spent trying to figure out how to ride more.
Shelby Stanger:
That first ride was the beginning of an important journey for Tyler. Since then, he's become a three-time Para Snowboard Cross World Champion, and even won gold at the 2022 Paralympic Games. Outside of snowboarding, Tyler has also made a return to surfing and skydiving, and in 2017 he became the first bilateral amputee to fly in a wingsuit. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-op Studios production presented by Capital One and the REI Co-op MasterCard.
Tyler Turner, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. I'm really excited to speak to you. You're fresh off a plane from Chile. Literally, you just walked in the door. What were you doing there?
Tyler Turner:
I was down filming some content for one of my amazing sponsors. It's going to be such a cool piece. I can't wait to see it.
Shelby Stanger:
It's pretty awesome. Okay. I want to go back. You're stud, and it sounds like you've always been a stud. You're a Paralympic gold medalist and snowboarding, the first bilateral amputee to fly in a wingsuit, and I feel like you also placed in the adaptive surfing competition at a high level. Were you always outdoorsy? Were you always attracted to adventure sports? Tell me how you kind of got into all of this in Canada where you grew up.
Tyler Turner:
Well, yeah, action sports, adventure sports, it's been everything forever. I grew up in northern Saskatchewan, so it's like quads and snowmobiles and ATVs. Then I moved to Alberta, which is mountains. Just the opportunity for rock climbing. Started climbing at a young age and it was like I work and I climb and I guide whitewater rafts and working towards ski snowboard guiding certs and competing, but moderation is not a word in my life. It's just like all in all the time. I dive headfirst, and I think I'm an addict, but I like to think that they're healthy addictions.
Shelby Stanger:
Were your parents like this? Did have siblings who were like this? Who fostered that in your... Is it just something you're born with?
Tyler Turner:
Yeah, I always say I was just born with the screw loose, I think. I don't don't know where it comes from, I don't have a great explanation. It's just like for me, doing these things, what gives me joy, it makes me happy. It's so cliche, but I feel more alive when I'm doing this stuff, and if I'm not doing it, I'm just sad. Funny enough, growing up, my brother actually was the crazy one. I wouldn't ride roller coasters, but he wanted... The biggest scariest roller coaster or whatever. But for me, it's about planning, perfect planning and perfect execution. That's why I love the sports that I participate in, because there isn't a lot of room for imperfect execution.
Shelby Stanger:
Tyler always enjoyed adventure sports that required focus and precision. Growing up, he loved snowboarding and slalom skiing, and he discovered surfing as a teenager. After high school, Tyler went on a four-month surf trip to Australia with his friends. While he was in Byron Bay near Brisbane, Tyler tried skydiving for the first time. He thought it'd be a one-off experience. But from the moment he jumped out of a plane, he was hooked.
Tyler Turner:
You hear everyone doing a skydive in Byron Bay, so I'm going to do the touristy thing. I did a skydive, it was amazing, did it with one of my best friends, my brother and a couple of friends from back home, and landed and we're all high-fiving, and I think everyone's like, "That was so cool." I was just like, "That was amazing, but these guys get to go do it again." The instructors we were with, the filmers, they're high-fiving us and they're going to do this again. Man, that was cool, but one and done? That's just not for me. Moderation, as I said, not my thing. And so, it started this thought process, saving up money and trying to get myself to a place where I could make enough money to support getting a solo license. Then it pretty much consumed my life for the next five years-ish and got all my coaching certifications and everything.
So it became a job. It wasn't costing me $200 every weekend. It was making me 200 bucks on a weekend. I think on the surface, you look at skydiving, you jump out the plane, float down, we pull your parachute, land safe, but it's so nuanced and there's so many different avenues in skydiving, and that's what really hooked me, is trying to perfect your human flight and how far can you push it and how precise can you be with flying your body? Some people fly at such an incredible level. There actually is this progression within the sport that I don't think most people see, and that's what really hooked me.
Shelby Stanger:
Tyler was 21 when he got his skydiving license, and he soon started exploring other ways to fly, like Wingsuiting. For those unfamiliar, wingsuiting is a bit different from skydiving. Wingsuit divers wear a suit with fabric webbing between their arms and body in between their legs. This allows them to glide through the air like a bird. Once Tyler was introduced to Wingsuiting, it quickly became another obsession. For years, he lived like a classic adventure dirtbag, sleeping in a van, jumping out of planes, climbing, snowboarding, and doing pretty much any action sport you could imagine. But in 2015 when Tyler was 29 years old, an accident changed the course of his life.
29 is the most pivotal year for just a human in general. I've talked to so many people who had a big life change at 29. I mean, that was almost eight years ago today, and you had this horrific accident skydiving, and you still don't know what happened.
Tyler Turner:
Yeah, you got it. I've tried everything like hypnotherapy and all the different ways to try and remember what actually happened, because no one saw it, so really don't know what happened. I mean, I made a massive mistake. There was lots of things that played into it. Well, what I was doing was a job. I film people doing their first tandem skydive or doing a tandem skydive. I have a helmet that has cameras on it. Then when you land your parachute, you get an opportunity to practice some skills and push yourself a little bit on landings. I just made a mistake doing some pretty high-performance stuff, and I hit the ground going extremely fast. I'm lucky because most people that make that mistake die. Then I was in a coma for quite a while after. Then I have no memory for a while after that.
I actually am definitely missing the next two weeks to a month of my life is just wiped. I've tried so hard to get memories back and I can't. I'm lucky I've heard the stories and seen the photos and everything, and so I've created memories of that. I actually only had one leg amputated at that time, but it was just this, my back's broken. My brain injury's really devastating and trying to learn how to talk again, and not just for a couple weeks but for years. Over that time, it's this longer process where the first few months I just was like, "Why? Why put in the effort? Why show up? What's the point? Because there isn't anything out there for me. It's all gone, identity, everything, community, it's gone. So why?" But then it comes around, and it gets to the point of, "All right, I'll show up."
When I got to that point of, I'll give it a try, I think that was the... Like I say, instead of waking up and being like, "Oh my god, I have no legs. I don't want to do this." Then like, "Oh, but I'm going to do this," and I overcome. It's more like, "Man, my legs, everything's messed up. I lost everything. This sucks." Then it got to like, "Well, I guess I'll wake up every day at least." It's not as amazing.
Shelby Stanger:
I appreciate the realness in which you tell this story. I think none of us can relate to that, but I think everybody can relate at some point to not wanting to get up, out of bed, and it's just sucking. Then you just have to do it, even if you don't want to. Then the day is gone and you're like, okay, that was a day. Then there's another day, but I'm sure it's not linear.
Tyler Turner:
I've come up with this theory essentially or this way. I approach things now that I've learned through all this, and I call it perpetual forward motion. If literally in one day all you can do is put one foot in front of the other, that's all you got done is one foot in front of the other that day, that's forward. That's all that matters. Just keep the momentum alive. I got this theory from Dr. John Coleman, this mental performance coach that I worked with, amazing guy. He said, "If that pendulum swinging, there's energy. When that pendulum dies, when it stops, that's where it's hard." It's hard to rebuild momentum. That apathy is hard to recover from. He's like, "Sure, you're mad, you're angry. You can imagine it where that pendulum is swinging to. It's like there's so much power in there."
Shelby Stanger:
I want to go back. You have extreme physical pain, and just your whole identity is gone, mental pain. Going to the bathroom now is just... It's hard. Everything is hard.
Tyler Turner:
It's still hard, and it's still probably the thing that I hate the most about being a double amputee is going to the bathroom and having a back injury, because not only just getting to the toilet sucks in the middle of the night, but then also using the toilet sucks. I know you've had people with spinal cord injuries on here before, and it's that part that nobody talks about. It's like, my prosthetics, they're awesome. They work well. I mean, they suck sometimes, but I wouldn't trade them back in. My life's great with two prosthetic legs. I would do anything to trade my back injury and my brain injury. Those two affect my life so much more, and they're invisible, right? You don't see them.
Shelby Stanger:
How soon after your first leg was amputated was your second leg amputated?
Tyler Turner:
A year and a half, 18 months.
Shelby Stanger:
Oh, wow. That's a long time.
Tyler Turner:
Yeah. I decided I'm going to commit to the rehab, I'm going to commit to everything, I'm going to do what's asked of me, and I'm going to try. But I had this feeling that it wasn't going to work. As the time went on, with my right leg, I had this reference of what a good leg feels like. Just because I have my original meat leg there doesn't mean it's good, and it was holding me back. After a lot of surgeries and the pain stayed the same, I would just be like, "If you want to mess this one up and cut it off, just feel free." I got to the point where I'm like, "Screw this foot." Yeah, it was a wild decision, but it was the right one. I saw this potential that if I amputated my second leg, I could go do the sports I want to do again. I might be able to skydive, surf, snowboard.
I got out of surgery smiling, high-fiving. Life was good. Then after a couple of weeks, this feeling set in like, was that a good idea? Yeah, I sat with that for a few months while I waited for it to heal to get my second prosthetic. Walking into the prosthetics office in Vancouver, I'm like, "I'm going to find out here in, well, 30 minutes if this decision I've been pondering for two years was the right one." It was kind of a crazy moment. I stood up and I was like, "Fuck yeah." It hurt like hell, but I was like, it's natural.
Shelby Stanger:
When Tyler first started wearing prosthetics, he was still in unbearable pain. Over time, the pain has settled down though, and Tyler has returned to some of his favorite activities. In 2015, Tyler Turner was in a skydiving accident and lost both of his legs. Since then, he's figured out how to return to some of his favorite sports. He started small, adjusting to his new prosthetics and testing what his body was capable of. But before he could start snowboarding or skydiving again, he had to overcome an even bigger obstacle.
What was the turning point for you from when you decided, "I'm going to do sports again, just differently."?
Tyler Turner:
I mean, the turning point was committing to getting off painkillers really, because I wasn't able to pursue what I wanted to do with how deep I got down that hole. My passion for skydiving and snowboarding and surfing and the potential to do those sports again is what really motivated me to figure that out. It was undoubtedly the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, and I've lost two legs and had a back injury and a brain injury and getting off of opiates is not even close. Prosthetics was easy compared to that. But once I got through that, that was where I was sitting there. It would've been January 2nd, 2020, and I was sitting there off painkillers and now I have two prosthetic legs and I was like, "All right, let's send it."
Shelby Stanger:
How did you get off of them?
Tyler Turner:
I tried multiple times, multiple ways. How I got off was I had something that I wanted so bad. I wanted more than that, and that was sports. In the end, I went cold turkey, which I would not recommend. It was as brutal as I could ever... I can't even describe it. It's impossible to describe how bad it was. But yeah, I tried other methods before and I wasn't having success, and I wanted to skydive so bad, and I wanted to surf and everything, but honestly, skydiving and base jumping because there's not that space for messing around like that. Those sports forced me to be fully sober and clear my mind.
Shelby Stanger:
Wow. Well, good for you.
Tyler Turner:
Thank you.
Shelby Stanger:
Thanks for talking about that. What was the first activity you did that really made you feel yourself again?
Tyler Turner:
I think skydiving was the first. I mean, up there with activities I used to do. I mean obviously I played other sports, wheelchair rugby and stuff. I was playing some sports to keep my mind and my brain just at ease a little bit. But skydiving was the first of those sports that I love that I went back to, because as much as it seems crazy and extreme, really, you get this nice little ride up to altitude, an airplane. You can roll out of that airplane if you want, and then you're floating on a bed of air. Then provided you land it softly and safely, there's a lot of skill that goes into it, but it's not the most taxing thing on your body.
I was actually able to get wheel-chaired up to an airplane, and then got into that airplane. It was quite the scene. My biggest worry at that time with still my back and pelvis and everything was in pretty rough shape. I was like, "How am I going to land this?" Just found a really nice, it was sandy and soft and came in, slid on my butt, and then they brought my wheelchair out to me and it was a pretty cool moment. But I was happy. Skydiving was accessible to me, which is crazy to think it was the most accessible sport, but it was there for the taking. Yeah, it got all those feelings back. It got all those juices flowing again and it's pretty amazing.
Shelby Stanger:
Amazing. Then you just kept doing it?
Tyler Turner:
Yeah. After that first one and I proved that I was still capable, then there was no more... Reservations were gone at that point. I did one skydive the first day and then after that I was back to doing four or five maybe a day and just progressing and trying to figure out how to fly this new body. I was flying with prosthetics, without prosthetics, different... Like I was saying earlier, there's all these different branches of skydiving, and it's more nuanced than you'd think. I was trying different types of free flying, and can I still do all these things? The progression kept going, and I just wanted to get back to the point where I recertified all my coaching certifications and they checked me out and said, "Yeah, you're still good to go." I got back teaching people in the sky and just got back to everything I love, and now it's just normal.
Shelby Stanger:
It didn't take long for Tyler to feel comfortable skydiving again, and he started jumping on a regular basis. In 2017, after extensive training and planning, he became the first bilateral amputee to fly in a wingsuit.
Tyler Turner:
With skydiving and wingsuiting, when I leave the plane, it feels identical to how it felt before my accident. The suit, you're laying on it. Feels like you're laying on this bed of air, on a magic carpet almost. It was definitely a little weird. My right leg's got quite a bit of weakness from paralysis in it, and so my right leg was getting thrown around a bit, but I settled in. Once I settled in, it was incredible.
Shelby Stanger:
As Tyler took up each sport, he regained confidence in his body, and he wondered how far he could push himself. More than anything, he wanted to snowboard again. Tyler loved carving through powder in the mountains, but as a double-leg amputee, he was unsure if he could ever regain the balance and control that the sport required. Then how did you start snowboarding again?
Tyler Turner:
The snowboarding's been my entire identity pretty much my whole life. It was a non-negotiable. I was going to figure out how to snowboard, but I also knew I had to be careful with it, because like my first time putting prosthetics on, like my first time skydiving, all this stuff, that moment where you find out, it's a make-or-break moment. It's incredible how it's literally a single... That moment you'll know an answer. Maybe if you can't, I couldn't walk on my prosthetics perfectly, I knew the answer, at least. I knew there was potential there. I was scared for that moment with snowboarding, and I knew it was going to have to come at some point. I was going to have to find out. I was really patient. It was the sport I was the most patient with, because I guess it's the most precious to me.
I wanted to make sure that I was going to be able to give it the best chance of success, and I knew it was going to take time for my prosthetics to heal, feel a little better, deal with the pain, get calluses built up and everything. I also was careful to set in a really achievable goals off the bat with it because other sports, I was like, "Screw it, I'm going to fly wingsuits," or whatever. But with snowboarding, I was like, "I'm going to ride my snowboard 10 feet this season. That's it." I was at one of my best buddies, Cody, and had people walking me around with my hands over their shoulders, and I couldn't barely walk. I put my feet in the bindings. I don't even think we strapped them up, but just with my forearm crutches, I pushed, got a little momentum and slid 10 feet and I was like, "Hell, yeah. Proud of my accomplishments. Year one, 10 feet done, check. Everything else is a bonus."
But that summer I was obsessing about snowboarding, and again, plan, plan, plan, and running down how I'm going to do it. Luckily, unlike skydiving and wingsuiting, there's a lot of people I could talk to and get [inaudible 00:22:43] from and ask about their experiences. Really lucky to have double amputees before me that have done it and have gone through the experience. And so, with the world of social media, you can be pretty shameless and just reach out and, hey, here's my situation, here's what I'm trying to do. Luckily, most people were pretty good to get back to me and help out. I worked so hard that summer and almost opening day at 2021, I guess it would've been me and my good good buddies growing up. We snuck out opening day and we had a plan.
I remember the night before on his carpet in his living room where I'm standing up and, all right, this could work. We were putting pieces of rubber underneath my heel to try and wedge it, so it felt a little more normal, and come up with a plan like, how we're going to even ride the chairlift? How are we even going to get me to the chairlift? Because I can barely walk at this point with the pain. But we got up there, and we had a plan to go down falling leaf where you hold each other's hands when you're learning to snowboard and have the instructor giving you support. I was like, "I'm going to do that with Spencer, my buddy." He gets me up and I'm like, "I don't want to find out."
I didn't want to ride, because I was about to find out maybe that I can't snowboard again. I was too nervous. For two and a half years, I've been saying, I'm going to snowboard. It's going to be possible. This is what I'm going to be able to do, making all these claims. Then I'm about to find out here in one second. If I turn this board, I'm going to find out if those are even possible. It was super scary, but he just gave me shit. He is like, "Dude, get over it. Point the board downhill."
Shelby Stanger:
Tyler did as he was told and took off down the slope. It was exhilarating. Even if he only made it about 30 feet before the pain took over. But in that moment, the joy of being able to ride was far greater than any discomfort. Over the subsequent months, he continued to set small, achievable goals to manage the pain, increase his endurance, and build back his skills. The first time you snowboarded was like 2020, but then you made the Olympic Team pretty quickly after.
Tyler Turner:
The skills were there, but it was just trying to figure out the pain and pain management and how to be able to ride more than two or three runs in a day or stop seven times on every run. I started going to camps and stuff, and Kansas Snowboard was really good to me. They saw the struggle, but also that there was potential there, so they were accommodating and, all right, well hey, you can do three runs? Great. Let's really train hard on those three runs and make sure that we're progressing. Also the coaches, I'm lucky they've worked with amputees in snowboarding for enough years that they had some good ideas and ways that we could adapt and modify and take different approaches. It was all just this fluid thing. It was happening so fast too because the games were coming and I just went for it.
Shelby Stanger:
How soon did you know that you were going to enter the Paralympics after the first time you just went 10 feet?
Tyler Turner:
To be honest, I wasn't super interested. I think a lot of just common people in North America, the world, the Paralympics are getting more and more televised prime time, and they're getting the light that I think they deserve. But I didn't tune in much. It was hard to, because it was buried on the internet somewhere. Maybe YouTube would have it, but yeah, there wasn't the access to it. But to me, the Paralympics felt like our participation ribbon. That was my vision of it, so I'm like, "Yeah, whatever, Paralympics. I just want to go snowboarding, ride powder again and whatever." Then I watched the Sochi and South Korea Pyeongchang, and I was like, "Oh, damn. Yep." I didn't really know. I didn't know what it was in for, and I watched the race and I'm like, "Oh, okay."
Shelby Stanger:
You're like, "This is legit."
Tyler Turner:
I can't beat these guys.
Shelby Stanger:
Yeah.
Tyler Turner:
Yeah. It's coming down to a 1/100 of a second, and it's gnarly, and it's fast, and these guys are good and I'm not that good. That was where it took some time to come around to like, okay, yeah, this is competing for your country on a national level with national support and competing for gold medals. It finally was like, okay, let's give this a try.
When that shift happened, and it was actually I was riding with a friend of mine, and he's like, "Dude, have you talked to the Paralympic team?" I was like, "Well, I sent an email just inquiring some information," and it's like, "I don't know, whatever. Not really my thing." Then he called one of the coaches and was like, "Yo, you should go snowboarding with this guy." Then they invited me out to a camp and it just took off from there. It is like, "There's a year and a half till the game, so if you want to do this, let's go."
Shelby Stanger:
You didn't just do it. You won gold.
Tyler Turner:
Yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
How did it feel to win gold?
Tyler Turner:
Gold was incredible. It was fun. There was just no pressure. I was still just no one out of nowhere. Honestly, I would just be laughing to myself. Every time I made finals, because I won, I think, five World Cups that season before. All the World Cup, oh, I lost one World Cup that season. So there's six, I won five of them, and I won World Champs three weeks before, because World Championships was postponed a year because of COVID. So we went World Cups, world Championships, and Paralympics all in one year, which is crazy. However, for me, it was great, because-
Shelby Stanger:
It was trading.
Tyler Turner:
I'm brand new. Yeah, I had great opportunities. And so, I was building this momentum. Every time I was in the final start gate, I'd just be laughing like, "What am I doing here?" Which was awesome, because then I kind of went snowboarding and didn't care because it blew my mind that I was even there. I didn't know if I'd ever be there. Yeah, that momentum, I was able to take all the way to winning gold. How was it winning gold, you ask. It was just, I couldn't ever imagine that level of accomplishment. I just wasn't even a consideration. Yeah, I don't know if it's still sunk-in years later. I did it, I did it, and I don't know how, and it's just the wildest.
Shelby Stanger:
You can follow Tyler on Instagram at tyturner14. That's T-Y-T-U-R-N-E-R-1-4. You can also find him at Tyturner.ca. Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Piers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producer is Jenny Barber. Our executive producers are Paolo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow the show. Take time to rate it and write a review wherever you listen. Remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.