(Dave Parke, left, and Dave Schaefer bring the Ride For Spine to Prince George.  Photo 250 News)

Prince George, B.C. – He is a man on a mission, the mission being a month-long bicycle ride covering 1,730 kilometers through British Columbia to raise funds that will be directed toward those living with spinal cord injuries.

Based on a 30-day month that would work out to riding a little less than 60 kms per day, and, while some may think that would not be such a daunting task, once you learn about the man involved in the mission you get an appreciation for what he has taken on.

David Parke is a 48-year-old avid mountain biker who four years ago wiped out on his bike on the mountain trails of North Vancouver and crashed to the forest floor.  He says he fell only 12 or 13 feet “and I realized that obviously I’d had a really bad wipe-out but I thought I would be able to just basically wipe myself off, get up and “wow that’s a hard knock, but through this I’m going to get myself organized and get back up and get on my bike and ride myself out.”

“Of course the next thing you try to do is get yourself up and as soon as I tried to move my arms to get myself to the point where I’d be able to pick myself up off the dirt, nobody was home, I kept asking my limbs to do something and they weren’t doing it.  That’s when it changed perspective.  All of a sudden I realized something a lot more profound had happened.”  He had fractured his neck at C7 and hyper-extended his spinal cord at C3 and was instantly an incomplete quadriplegic.

He kept trying to move but nothing happened and the frustration started to set in.  David was riding alone that day and when he landed, it was face first in the dirt.  “It was hard to breathe and I couldn’t really yell.  I tried to do it for a little while but I was choking on the dirt.  I would try, try, try, and then I just thought, “okay I’m going to have to get myself calm again and think of a strategy to be able to either breathe or yell.”

After calming himself over a period of time he realized he was going to have to flip himself over “because I knew that I wasn’t going to get anybody’s attention based on the lack of oxygen that was coming out of me.”  He explained that with these kinds of injuries you lose oxygen and the ability to use your vocal chords.  “Once I realized that I had to flip over because it could be life-threatening, I somehow managed to flip over and get a better breath and started yelling for help.  Then I’d breathe and calm down, and start yelling again.  This went on for about an hour-and-a-half before somebody in his back yard just happened to be close enough to the trailhead and heard me.  After several times hearing this he decided to go up and investigate it.  He came up and found me in the position that I was in and said “is there something I can help you with” and I just knew that if someone found me that I would have a chance to get out of there.  And that was really when I realized that, “wow there might be hope here.”   He says before he was located he was worried about wild animals, about nobody coming down the trail that whole day (his accident occurred in the morning), about not being found at all.

First responders were called.  “The fire department bundle-wrapped me onto a spine board and put a collar around me and took me down to the ambulance.  It took me to Lions Gate Hospital where I got a series of tests done, MRIs and bone scans and I guess at that point in time they realized they might want to send me down to VGH which has a far more superior spine clinic.  They decided to not do surgery based on what they had seen with the injury and decided to wait it out.  Sometimes your body goes through a period of time where you basically freeze, and it’s probably a survival mechanism to sort of keep the bare essentials running until such time as your body slowly thaws, and then they can determine what things need to happen.”

Parke was in the step-down clinic at VGH for a week, the ICU for just over a week and then was transferred to the GF Strong Rehabilitation Centre in Vancouver.  He lived there as a permanent resident for 3 ½ months.  “I was learning how to stand and walk so Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy were just trying to gear me up to get my body prepared, all the little pieces of the puzzle, to get me into that position where I’m able to try to stand and to try and walk again.  They spent all that time getting me to that point and I was discharged from GF Strong.”

Parke says some may complain about underfunding of the BC healthcare system but he would rather have suffered his injury and treatment here than in the US.  He was told the estimated cost of his hospital treatment alone was $1.2 million.

David was mobile when he left the rehab centre.  “I ended up walking out of GF Strong and I guess in my head I was hoping and dreaming that that was how it would go and that’s what did happen.”  He still had blood pressure, mobility, co-ordination and dizziness problems going on.  There were challenges with stairs, bathroom accommodations, shower stalls and bathtubs “but I realized how lucky I was to leave with the few things that I did have to try to accommodate.”

Did you have assistance at home?  “I have a wife and kids, my wife helped out significantly, she really stepped up to the plate above and beyond just what she had to do work wise.  She was just extremely helpful and I think if you don’t have support through this process, and people to discuss and talk about certain things, if you don’t have that it’s a very challenging existence for sure.”

Parke gives glowing praise to the team of 8 or 10 therapists, councilors and social service workers at GF Strong, as well as the doctors and nurses, who helped him through his treatment and recovery.  He is still not fully able to use his hands and feet, but does incrementally notice small changes day to day that others might not notice and his dedication in working his way back from the injuries he suffered now puts him in the position of being able to help others.

When he first started discussing his “Ride For Spine”, a bicycle trip from northern BC to Vancouver to raise money for Spinal Cord Injury BC, the reaction he got was no, you can’t possibly do that.  And that was all it took because one thing learned from David Parke is this, tell him no and he becomes determined to accomplish whatever he sets out to do.

And so it was on June 7th that the two Daves, Parke on his bike and his friend of 32 years, Dave Schaefer driving the support vehicle, set out from Dease Lake, stopping in communities such as Burns Lake, Prince George, Williams Lake and Hope before reaching the goal of arriving at the GF Strong Centre in Vancouver on July 7th.    Parke actually thinks they’ll arrive before July 7th because he is putting in between 75 and 115 kilometres a day, depending on conditions.

Late Friday afternoon the two Daves were the guests of honor at a barbecue reception outside the Spinal Cord Injury BC office on Kinsmen Place.  They set out from Prince George today, continuing south on the journey to Vancouver.  Along the way Parke and Schaefer are raising awareness and funds for Spinal Cord Injury BC, a not-for-profit organization that assists people with spinal cord injuries and their families as they deal with the challenges of living with a physical disability.