A skydiving accident left him a double amputee. Now he’s a snowboarding champion

A B.C. skydiver hasn't let losing both his legs slow him down. The Campbell River athlete is now a gold medal Paralympian and motivational speaker.

A life-long lover of all things athletic, it was skydiving that really captivated Tyler Turner.

Until an accident in 2017.

“Something messed up. No one saw and I don’t remember. I hit the ground going extremely fast,” Turner told Global’s This is BC.

He lost both legs below the knees, leaving him with an uncertain future.

“I didn’t know if I would ever find joy again, or ever be happy living as a single amputee let alone, later to find out, a double amputee,” he said.

But his road to recovery has come with more excitement than he could have ever imagined. Motivated in large part by those thrills of so many of his favourite sports.

”It took a long time, and a lot of just grinding at the bottom,” Turner said. “When I thought I was at rock bottom I would drop even lower sometimes and I had this mountain in front of me that absolutely looked insurmountable.”

A return to snowboarding became a rallying point that led Turner all the way to the top of the podium in the last Paralympics.