The Fighter

Two terrible accidents damaged the body of Dillon DePiazza. But they only strengthened his commitment to a life of fitness.

- Shawn Donnelly

I JOINED THE AIR FORCE right after high school. I didn’t see it as a lifelong career, but I really liked it. I became a physical training leader. As a 19-year-old airman first class, I was the youngest and lowest-ranked person in my squadron to train generals, lieutenants, and colonels.

I did my four years and got out. I started going to Las Positas junior college in Livermore, CA. It was in the middle of my first semester, and I had just bought a motorcycle, a Yamaha FZ-09 naked streetfighter. Supersexy.

It was Sept. 7, 2014, my day off from working construction, and I was taking a nice cruise on my motorcycle. I came around this turn, on Calaveras Road in San Jose, and this woman driving a sedan hit me head-on. It put me under the car, and I guess the woman didn’t know where I was, so in her panic, she backed over me again.

I tried to get up twice and my legs didn’t work, so I knew I was paralyzed. The cops came, there was a helicopter above me going “whoosh, whoosh.” I was hearing firefighters talk to me in slow motion. It was like something out of a movie. I put my head down, and it was so comfortable. I was like, “Is this what dying feels like?” I closed my eyes and that was it. I woke up a week later out of a coma. I was told that I had fractured my T5 vertebrae, my spinal cord was severed, and I would never walk again.