Lars Veen is a professional athlete from Lillehammer, Norway.

Early December of 2004, Lars and fellow Scandinavian friends, were on a mission to get some preseason competition training done at Mammoth Mountain, California. Lars along with his fellow comrades were out there training and shooting photos as often as the weather permitted. All the guys Lars hangs with are really talented and hard working so as you can imagine they caught a lot of attention while skiing around.

One afternoon, while skiing on a jump he had successfully landed tricks on all week, he overshot the landing and crashed. He took the jump larger than the landing permitted with a Switch 720 and upon his impact he felt a heavy compression and then lost feeling in his legs. Like every spinal cord injury demands, he was immediately flown to the nearest trauma center for medical attention. Thankfully, his location landed him at Washoe Medical Center, Reno, NV. Washoe being located at the basin of the Lake Tahoe area, had a lot of spinal injury experience and a knock out nursing staff, led by a good friend of mine, Aaron McGowan. Aaron took Lars in and gave him the mental and physical treatment an 18 yr old Lars Veen could only have wished for during such a traumatic event.

Lars had fractured his spine, which required surgery. Because of the great impact his spine suffered, it traumatized his spinal cavity preventing the needed fluids to pass, which resulted in paralysis from his chest down. No one knew if this was a daylong paralysis or a lifetime. Only time and faith would tell. It took Lars a long 6-week recovery to get back to his homeland.

Lars immediately got busy with his rehabilitation. Fortunately for Lars, Oslo has an amazing rehab center specific for Lars’ SCI with a river view and everything. There he shattered records for consecutive hours of strength building. Lars eventually was transported up to Lillehammer to another facility where he now continues to rehabilitate and strive towards the life he once had. Lars is now moving around by himself; regaining feeling back in his legs often.

As written by Matt Sterbenz

Here's a little video of what Lars has been up to lately. 

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