<div style="page-break-before:always; page-break-after:always"><p id="1"></p><div style="page-break-before:always; page-break-after:always"><b>Skye Schillhammer was shooting photos in</b> Bellingham, Washington, on a winter day with Pacific Northwest ripper Taylor James, a local well-known for his wild-guy antics on and off the bike, when suddenly the day took a serious turn. James had just attempted to flip his downhill bike but came up short and emerged covered in dirt. It was one of those days when you have to really want to ride. Temperatures hovered around freezing. The dirt was as hard as concrete and tires felt like Lego blocks rolling against the frozen earth. The crash ended a long day of shooting.<div style="page-break-before:always; page-break-after:always"><p id="2">That&rsquo;s when the two encountered a visibly panicked man. &ldquo;He was frantic,&rdquo; said Schillhammer, who works for Transition Bikes. &ldquo;He told us his buddy was badly injured. He didn&rsquo;t really know where he was, but Taylor and I are familiar with the area, so we were able to figure it out.&rdquo; When they arrived, they found Richard Kiene in a scene no one ever wants to see. &ldquo;Richard was delirious and moaning. He couldn&rsquo;t feel his legs. He was shivering and blueish and covered in everyone&rsquo;s clothes to stay warm. They had managed to move him down the trail to a gated access road by the time we arrived. I remember being shocked they&rsquo;d attempted to move him at all,&rdquo; Schillhammer recalled. Kiene said the crash wasn&rsquo;t extraordinary, but when he went down, he didn&rsquo;t roll out the way he normally would. His first inclination was to get himself and the bike off the trail but when he went to move, his legs lay still. &ldquo;I figured I had broken my back, but I thought in a minute I&rsquo;d come around and at least be able to move,&rdquo; He said. &ldquo;Then it became clear that my legs weren&rsquo;t working at all and my back was in excruciating pain.&rdquo;</p><div style="page-break-before:always; page-break-after:always"><p id="2">Being deep into the woods with no phone service meant official help was hours away. The crew decided to take matters into their own hands. Another friend of Kiene&rsquo;s had found a ladder and some 2x6s from a nearby construction site and hauled them up the hill. Someone else found a tarp. James had ratchet straps in his van, which was parked at the end of the access road about a mile away. They stripped off as many clothes as possible to cover Kiene, which meant the rest of the riders were freezing. The metal ladder was frozen under their hands as they tried to carry him out. The icy metal paired with Kiene&rsquo;s size required frequent breaks and they were concerned about how much they might be disturbing his spinal cord by constantly lifting and setting him down.</p><p id="3">After a few minutes of slowly moving toward the van, the crew decided to hoist the makeshift stretcher onto Schillhammer&rsquo;s and James&rsquo; bikes to create a de facto stretcher. The front rung of the ladder rested on one seat and the handlebars of the second bike held the back of the ladder. &ldquo;We were able to stabilize him and steer easily. This was huge and it still took us a while to get him out of there,&rdquo; Schillhammer said. Once they reached the gate, they decided to put him in the back of James&rsquo; van. &ldquo;I remember thinking there is no way this guy is going to make it if we sit here and wait for an ambulance,&rdquo; Schillhammer added. James knew another one of the riders through work and family friends, so he tossed him the keys and told him to drive to the hospital and he&rsquo;d figure out how to get the van back later. &ldquo;It was a necessity to get everything moving quickly,&rdquo; James said.</p><p id="4">Once Kiene arrived at the local hospital, he was airlifted to a trauma center in Seattle and under-went immediate surgery for a fractured T12 and L1 vertebrae. He was given a four-level fusion from his T2 to his L11. In other words, they put Humpty Dumpty back together again. He woke up able to wiggle his toes in his right foot but had no sensation in his left leg. He underwent extensive in-patient physical therapy for the following month and slowly gained motion back in both legs, albeit the left leg lacked innervation and suffered significantly more damage.</p><div style="page-break-before:always; page-break-after:always"><p id="6">In the 20 months since Kiene&rsquo;s accident, he&rsquo;s progressed from a walker to double forearm crutches to a cane and is now able to walk unassisted. Even better, Kiene is back on the bike thanks to a purchase he made from free-rider Paul Basagotia, who was paralyzed at Red Bull Rampage in 2015 and later returned to riding because of e-MTBs. &ldquo;I saw Paul Basagotia was selling his eBike and reached out to him and bought the bike. It was life-changing,&rdquo; Kiene recalled. Prior to his crash, Kiene was a downhill and cyclocross racer, and loved classic Pacific Northwest technical riding. &ldquo;I can pretty much ride all of the same trails now except I don&rsquo;t have the muscle strength to hit bigger drops&mdash;yet,&rdquo; he said.</p><p id="7">Kiene&rsquo;s recovery has been a relief for Schillhammer and James. &ldquo;We didn&rsquo;t hear anything for months, and so for the most part this just left my life,&rdquo; Schillhammer said. &ldquo;Then one day he showed up at Transition and said, &lsquo;Hey, I&rsquo;m looking for you. You saved my life.&rsquo; It was shocking to see him. I was at a loss for words. When we sent him off in the van it didn&rsquo;t feel real. There was too much stress to process.&rdquo; Kiene made custom fenders that say &lsquo;Life Saver&rsquo; for everyone who was a part of his rescue that day. James shrugged off any notion of being a hero. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s easy to be compelled to do the right thing,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t mind helping and I didn&rsquo;t really think twice about giving them my van. Plus, if anything happened to it, I have awesome insurance,&rdquo; he said laughing.</p><p id="8">James and Schillhammer look at riding a bit differently these days. &ldquo;I always travel with an In-Reach device when I&rsquo;m out in the backcountry or anywhere without cell service,&rdquo; Schillhammer said. James&mdash;who&rsquo;s been involved with several intense extractions like this one&mdash;said he gets nervous when he has to wait for more than a few minutes at the bottom of the trail. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if people are sessioning a jump or if someone&rsquo;s actually hurt. All I know is these kinds of things happen so fast and I always hope I don&rsquo;t have to go extract someone else.&rdquo;</p><p id="9">Kiene continues to recover and gain more strength in his legs. He credits the help of strangers for saving critical hours by transporting him. While moving someone with a spinal cord injury is never recommended, Kiene is grateful that everything transpired the way it did. &ldquo;Those guys are heroes. They saved my life and I didn&rsquo;t even know them,&rdquo; he said. A ladder, some wood, two downhill bikes (yes, people still buy them), and ratchet straps prove that creative survival skills can sometimes lead to a very happy ending.</p>

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